
HH8B 

■fla il 

HHit 

KHH 

Mil 

■ 

II 

Wti&m 
W 

I 



■■khI^MHbI 

IT 



n|U|l| 
umibmmimm 

H 






hp 



Uml 
HUH 

JUHHlil 

KM nHUmff 




Class " BVs sa 

Book . Jl)S* . 

GopyrightN°_ 



COPYRIGHT OEPOSm 




BOOTHE COLWELL DAVIS 



Country Life Leadership 



A BODY OF COUNTRY LIFE 
SERMONS 



BY 

BOOTHE COLWELL DAVIS, S.T.D., LL.D. 

President of Alfred University 



AMERICAN SABBATH TRACT SOCIETY 

PLAINFIELD, N. J. 

1921 



.£3 



Copyrighted, 1921 

American Sabbath Tract Society, 

Plainfield, N. J. 



C1A690854 



JAN -2 1923 



'M$ 



TO THE MEMORY OF 

THE REV. SAMUEL D. DAVIS, 

A FAITHFUL PREACHER OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, 

A SUCCESSFUL COUNTRY CHURCH PASTOR, 

MY DEVOTED FATHER AND INSPIRING IDEAL, 

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED 



PREFACE 

Country Life Sermons, given to the public in this 
little volume, were written for young people in the 
process of education for life in the open country. They 
are baccalaureate sermons delivered before students 
of the New York State School of Agriculture and the 
College of Liberal Arts at Alfred University. The 
collection deals with a fairly complete cycle of church 
and religious problems inherent in current country life. 

It is the hope of the author that by giving them a 
wider parish, they may help to crystallize and intensify 
the present growing country life movement, and defi- 
nitely fix the attention of readers upon the important 
place religion must hold in the life of the folk of the 
countryside. 

Grateful acknowledgment is hereby made to my 
kinsman and life-long friend, Dr. Corliss Fitz Ran- 
dolph, for valuable suggestions in regard to the form 
of this book and for his experienced help in proof 
reading. 

BOOTHE COLWELL DAVIS. 

Alfred, N. Y ., 
August i, 192 1. 



(6) 



INTRODUCTION 

/ TVHE present generation is known for its attack on 
-*■ the human problems of country life. First a 
challenge to the practices of farming, the onset has 
broadened as it has proceeded, and today all the phases 
of the rural situation and all the attributes of country 
people are brought under close scrutiny. The analysis 
lies everywhere, in the field of economics, of house- 
hold management, of research, of roads and all means 
of communication, of organization and politics and 
civics, of school and library and church. 

It is because of this very diversity of inquiry and 
the onslaught from every side and angle that we are 
in danger of overlooking the motive power that lies 
behind all permanent improvement. In our study of 
attributes we must not forget the mainspring ; and the 
mainspring is the moral conviction of the individual 
men and women of the countryside. 

What we know as the moral qualities are as old 
as human history, and, for all that we can see, they are 
inherent in the nature of things. They have been urged 
by every leader of thought and preached from every 
pulpit. Yet it is the prime reward of life that every 
soul must acquire its own experiences. However many 
may have been the persons who have had these experi- 
ences in all the centuries, and however numerous the 
books of advice, and however keen may be the recital 
of the old to the young, yet the young must go their 

(7) 



own way and must live their own day and must fashion 
the fire of life into the great result. To every boy 
and girl these experiences of the old verities are as new 
as the dawn and the twilight. 

Greater than any organization, even than the organ- 
ization of the church, is the moral conviction of the 
individual soul. Every good work and every public 
action traces itself back to a person, as a river traces 
its course to a clear pool in the hills. We must al- 
ways make the appeal to persons. The Bible history 
calls all its actors by name. 

So am I interested in these plain, direct sermons 
to students by Doctor Davis, who is attached to the 
rural problem with sympathy and understanding. They 
are not sermons of dogmatism, but are first-hand ad- 
vice and appeals to the young people of rural train- 
ing and proclivities who have been under his presi- 
dency. This collection adds another to the growing 
list of good books on the spiritual leadership of coun- 
try life. 

Liberty H. Bailey. 



(8) 



CONTENTS 

Preface 5 

Introduction i 

Country Life Leadership H 

The Conditions of Country Life Success 2*j 

Country Life Emancipation 41 

God's Law of Growth 55 

God's Plan for Our Lives 69 

The Stout Heart 83 

The Larger Vision 97 

God's Measure of Duty 113 

The Influence of Ideals Upon Character 127 

The Good Fight of Faith 143 



(9) 



Country Life Leadership 



"Ye are the light of the world," etc. 
Matthew V: 14-16 



1912 
(Agricultural School) 



COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

Text. — "Ye are the light of the world. A city set 
on a hill can not be hid. Neither do men light a lamp 
and put it under a bushel, but on the stand ; and it 
shineth unto all that are in the house. Even so let 
your light shine before men, that they may see your 
good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.' , 
Matt, v: 14-16. 

'T^HESE are the words of Jesus, the Master, as 
-*■ He spoke to the assembled multitude on the 
Mount of Beatitudes. It was a time when He 
was turning over to other men, to His disciples, 
to His church, the great work of carrying on to 
completion the kingdom which He had come to 
establish. 

He had lived and laboured among men for 
months and years. He had taught and suffered 
and now was soon to die. He had said, "I came 
to seek and to save the lost." But He now said 
to His disciples: "Ye are the salt of the earth," 
as though to them was given the saving power of 
humanity. He had said, "I am the light of the 
world"; but now He says to His followers, "Ye 
are the light of the world." He had laboured 
among men, healing, cleansing, forgiving, com- 
forting. He is now about to send forth His dis- 
ciples into the world as His representatives, His 
agents for righteousness, His ambassadors, His 
illuminating power. The text therefore suggests 

(13) 



14 COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

indirectly the theme of this baccalaureate sermon, 
which is Country Life Leadership. 

I. When Jesus uttered the words of the text, 
His kingdom was represented by Himself alone as 
a leader and by a little group of a dozen followers. 
The world was hostile to His teaching and was 
in the bondage of slavery and sin. The majority 
of the human race, among civilized peoples, had 
been slaves and were still so when He lived and 
taught. We visit the ruins of Egypt and wonder 
at the greatness of the pyramids, but they were 
builded by slaves; the lash of the slave driver 
drove the toiler to his task. We admire the 
crumbling ruins of the Acropolis at Athens, but 
there were twenty slaves in Athens to every free 
man when she reared her proudest temples and 
wrote her most enduring literature. And the 
Roman Empire, whose conquering armies ruled 
the world in the very day when Jesus spoke, filled 
her treasuries with the price of her enslaved cap- 
tives. 

But Christ heralded new principles destined to 
emancipate the world. He said, "Henceforth I 
call you not servants, or slaves ; but I have called 
you friends, for all the things that I have heard 
of my Father, I have made known unto you." 
He said, "Ye shall know the truth and the truth 
shall make you free." And, thus, in the midst 
of the darkness and of the despair, He flashed 
forth the new truth that Christian faith and serv- 



COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 15 

ice are the basis of democracy. This truth has 
revolutionized the world. 

First. Politically, men have thrown off the yoke 
of servitude, though our own country was the last 
of the great civilized nations to abolish human 
slavery as a system. But the leaven was working 
from the day Christ planted the seeds of democ- 
racy. One after another, as the Christian faith 
spread over the nations, they rose to the ideal 
which He taught, even though, as in America, it 
cost war and blood-shed and death. 

Second. Contemporaneous with political free- 
dom came intellectual freedom. The ignorance, 
superstition, the darkness of the Middle Ages 
gave place to education, research, and freedom of 
thought. Men once persecuted and ostracized 
for independent thinking became liberated, and 
today they are honoured and rewarded for every 
advanced step in the field of knowledge or original 
investigation. 

Third. Religious emancipation followed close 
on the intellectual and the political. The perse- 
cution of brave men and women for religious dif- 
ferences and so-called heresies is fast disappearing 
before the advance of democracy in religion, with 
its larger brotherhood of Christian fellowship. 

Fourth. Economic emancipation is now knock- 
ing at the doors of organized industry and com- 
merce. There is equal opportunity for small cap- 
ital and large, for the hand-toiler and the brain- 



16 COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

worker. Universal education, technical education 
in the science of industry and in the science of 
government and of social institutions, is alreadv 
heralding the day of such economic, social, and 
industrial emancipation. The rise of ethical 
standards, where no longer "might makes right" 
but where brotherly love and fellowship are the 
constant and high appeal to men, is working out 
the sanctifying influences for the redemption of 
society. Injustice, oppression, industrial warfare, 
the sweatshop, the lock-out, and the strike are 
alike to give way before the march of learning, 
brotherly love, and social righteousness. 

All this presents but some phases of the fulfill- 
ment of the words of our Saviour to His disci- 
ples, u Ye are the salt of the earth," "Ye are the 
light of the world." 

II. But I must now direct your attention to 
some of the methods by which this achievement is 
wrought out. There are five modes of activity 
by which the light of the world is disseminated. 
These five phases of light bearing are set forth 
in the Bible, and are all fundamental in every 
social and religious progress. 

First. The physical; namely, human uplift 
through the body. "Know ye not that ye," that 
is, your bodies, "are the temple of God." "He 
that defileth the body, him shall God destroy." 
For a thousand years men did not understand 
this truth. During the Middle Ages men sought 



COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 17 

spiritual elevation through the humiliation of the 
body. Hunger, cold, privations, and physical suf- 
fering were the chief signs and requisites to spirit- 
ual well-being. But now no longer is such a creed 
believed to be Biblical or rational. A healthy 
mind and a pure heart in a sound body constitute 
the ideal of modern education and modern Chris- 
tianity. Hospitals are provided for the afflicted. 
Better still, gymnasiums, physical training, fresh 
air, and exercise are provided for the well, in or- 
der that they may keep well. Recreation and the 
moral values of play now challenge the attention 
of philanthropists and social workers. Temper- 
ance, sanitation, healthful food, and pure water, 
these are matters of public concern as Christian 
education becomes more and more "the light of 
the world." 

Second. A second mode of world enlightenment 
is through the intellect; namely, the development, 
training, and discipline of the mind. "Ye shall 
know the truth and the truth shall make you 
free." Emancipation of the intellect and of the 
whole man through the intellect is that form of 
education which we call, "the adjustment of the 
individual to the possessions of the race." Schools 
and colleges are the means by which a Christian 
civilization is promoting this intellectual emanci- 
pation. Wherever Christianity has gone, there 
education has gone hand in hand with the church, 
the most effective agents for the enlightenment 
of the race. 



18 COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

Third. Good citizenship follows close upon 
physical and intellectual perfection. Here, too, 
the Scripture gives its sanction ; for when our Sav- 
iour said to the people of his time, "Render unto 
Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God 
the things that are God's/' it is evident that He 
sought to inculcate obedience to civil law, which is 
a high type of citizenship. As government be- 
comes increasingly complex and industrial, and so- 
cial and civil duties more and more overlap, the 
exaltation of citizenship is more and more a fun- 
damental method for the extension of the light of 
Christian learning. "Happy is the people whose 
God is the Lord," and there is nothing that per- 
tains to justice, civil liberty, or true democracy 
that is not of the essence of this light of the 
world." 

Fourth. Little differentiated from the political 
is the social responsibility and privilege of the com- 
munity. "Do unto others as ye would that men 
should do unto you" and "Love thy neighbour 
as thyself" are fundamental in all teaching of the 
Christian religion and in the progress of civiliza- 
tion. The responsibility of being our "brother's 
keeper," which Cain could not see, is the duty 
which is looming highest in religious consciousness 
today. Love and consideration for our fellows of 
all stations in life, charitable provision for the un- 
fortunate and dependent, organized charity and 
social service, the protection of the weak against 



COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 19 

the strong, of infancy against child-labour, and of 
womanhood against the sweat-shop; these are 
among the avenues which are extending the light 
of civilization. 

Fifth. Finally, I must speak of religion, of the 
purely spiritual, as a mode of light-shining; for 
the public has not yet been able to identify all 
these methods, that I have already mentioned with 
religion, as a vital part of religion; as though 
the perfection of the body, the discipline of the 
mind, the organization of government, and social 
service were not of the essence of religion. 

"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, and thy 
neighbour as thyself" lays emphasis both on the 
spiritual and on the social, but it makes the social 
dependent upon the spiritual. You can not love 
your neighbour truly until you have first learned 
to love God. The institutions of religion, the 
house of God, public worship, the Bible School, 
the Christian Association; these are means of 
grace and are essential to all that goes with the 
redeemed life. If Jesus's promise, "Ye are the 
light of the world" is ever fulfilled in us, it is, 
above all, because, more than all else, we are men 
and women of religion. 

ill. I have reviewed thus briefly the history of 
the past and recounted the Hve principal modes of 
progress for a Christian civilization in order to 
point out to you, young men and women of the 
senior class, you who are about to graduate from 



20 COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

the State School of Agriculture, the new appli- 
cation of the truth of the text, u Ye are the light 
of the world." 

There is nothing new in the fundamental things 
of the soul, or of the body, or of brotherly love. 
Religion, which is "The life of God in the soul of 
man," is ever the same in essence, but it has new 
and varying applications as conditions and peoples 
and times change. A new application of the old 
principles must therefore be made if you are to 
become "the light of the world." 

I desire to help you see how to make this new 
application which must be made through the same 
general agencies that have been the modes of 
progress since Christ lived and taught. 

First. The body, which, in the old theology of 
the Middle Ages, was the prison house of an 
afflicted soul, and which in the world of toil today 
bears its yoke of bondage and pain until it breaks 
and sinks in death, must be emancipated through 
this new application of education to practical life. 
In the farmer's vocation in the past, the body has 
counted for little save as a burden-bearer, a 
drudge, and a slave. Little thought has been giv- 
en to reasonable hours, recreation, physical-train- 
ing, sanitation, and the common comforts and re- 
fined joys of physical life. But the new agricul- 
tural education should change all this. You 
should no longer make your bodies slaves to do 
what your brains ought to do. Your work should 



COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 21 

be planned with reference to economy of labour, 
and proper hours of rest and sleep. Your homes 
should not only be sanitary, but should contribute 
to the convenience, comfort, and well-being of the 
body, to its best development and its happiest life. 
Your food should, not only be ample, but should 
be wholesome, scientifically selected and prepared, 
and thus made capable of rendering the maximum 
amount of strength, exuberance of feeling, and of 
physical efficiency. These things have been little 
thought of and provided for in the past in the 
open country; and in this great mission of the exul- 
tation of the bodies of men in the life of the open 
country, you are now to become u the light of the 
world." 

Second. In the training of the mind, particularly 
for life in the country, you are also among the 
pioneers. It has been a saying for many years 
that, if a man is going to the city or into the pro- 
fessions, he must be educated, but if he is to be a 
farmer, he needs but little education. We have 
now fallen upon different times and men rise up 
everywhere to say that of all the vocations or pro- 
fessions agriculture, in order to be successful, 
must be scientific. You have studied chemistry, 
botany and plant germination, soil physics and fer- 
tilization, crop rotation and mechanics, food val- 
ues, cooking and sewing, home decoration and san- 
itation, that you may be scientific. In this again 
you are, in a true sense, "the light of the world." 



22 COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

Third. Then government, too, is not to be over- 
looked by citizens of the country. If in the past 
we have let other men think for us in matters of 
government, and make and administer our laws 
for us; if farmers have shirked responsibility of 
political leadership and at the same time have 
borne the burdens of government in taxation, in 
military service, and in many another responsibil- 
ity imposed, even so the new awakening in agri- 
cultural education brings to us ideals of citizen- 
ship which emphasize the sacredness of the ballot 
and the high privilege and duty of leadership. 
This new education brings independent thought 
for civic righteousness and economic justice, and 
with it a new interpretation of citizenship. Here 
again the new country life movement becomes 
"the light of the world." 

Fourth. In nothing, however, has the country 
life progress been slower than in the dawning of 
social consciousness. We have been intensely in- 
dividual, with a sturdy independence that has been 
heroic. We have believed that each man should 
fight his own battles and enjoy the fruit of his own 
industry, or suffer the consequences of his own 
improvidence. Our homes have been isolated and 
our industries segregated so that cooperation was 
little possible, and less desired. But the new 
education is teaching us federation and coopera- 
tion. It is showing us our interdependence, not 
only industrially but socially. It is showing us 



COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 23 

our indebtedness to each other for that greatest 
of all our assets and our joys; namely, love. 

Some glimpses of rural sociology are laying 
upon us new responsibilities for fellowship and for 
service. This is one of the greatest lessons we 
have to learn and to teach. Strange indeed that 
it has been the longest deferred ! But a new era 
of social fellowship and service awaits us — more 
business cooperation, greater mutual confidence 
and trust. The Grange, Old Home Day, trie 
social centre, the telephone, and the trolley-car are 
making us a united people of the country side. All 
that is wanted is a fully awakened social conscious- 
ness, and the rest will follow. This social con- 
sciousness your agricultural education is bringing 
you, so that in this also "Ye are the light of the 
world." 

Fifth. But the burden of my message to you 
today is in relation to your light-bearing power 
through religion. It is as Christians that your 
light will be most powerful and most useful. It 
is this light that is most needed in country life to- 
day, as it is also in every other sphere of human 
life. But in the open country particularly, there 
has been of late a decadence in the organized ac- 
tivities of the church. The town and the city have 
drawn heavily upon the resources of the church in 
the country districts. Communities in the country 
once strongly religious are depleted in church 
membership and their church properties are falling 



24 COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

into decay. New problems have arisen and we 
have not adjusted ourselves rapidly enough to 
them. 

However, in the last analysis, religion is the 
supreme call of the soul. The physical body, the 
mind, government, and society are all dependent 
for their highest conceptions of truth and duty 
upon religion. That community which ignores 
this fact must continue to deteriorate and decay in 
all that which holds the real values of life. 

Let me, then, bespeak for you, as light-bearers, 
my young friends, a large participation in the real 
things of religion; not in those things of sectarian 
bigotry, narrowness, and strife, but in that larger 
reverence for the Divine, that is not only above us, 
but that is within us and about us, and which finds 
its best expression in the experience, the beliefs, 
the institutions, and the forms of religion. Let 
me urge you to identify yourselves with these great 
interests of life so vital to all and particularly to 
life in the country. Such identification and partic- 
ipation is not fruitless. It has the rich rewards of 
spiritual values for yourselves and for others. 
You are light-bearers, holding aloft the lamp of 
religion and bidding other men walk in the light 
which guides your footsteps and which may guide 
theirs also. Its rewards are not limited to this 
world, however rich they may be here, but they 
reach out into the eternal and give you possessions 
in the home of many mansions. What is still 



COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 25 

more blessed, they enable you to bring other men, 
weary with the strife and the burden of life, safe 
through the stress and the gloom and to plant 
their feet on the solid rock of faith in the sunlight 
of the Father's presence and glory. To such light 
bearing, my friends, I welcome you today and bid 
you God-speed in helping the world to see Him 
who is "the Light of Life." 



The Conditions of Country Life 

Success 



"If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat of the 
good of the land." Isaiah 1:19. 



1911 
(Agricultural School) 



THE CONDITIONS OF COUNTRY LIFE 

SUCCESS 

Text. — "If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat 
of the good of the land." Isaiah i: 19. 

npHESE words of Isaiah were spoken to the 
■*■ people of Israel whom he had just been 
warning of the evil results of their sins. "Wash 
you, make you clean," he says, "put away the 
evil of your doings from before mine eyes: 
cease to do evil; learn to do well. Seek justice; 
relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead 
for the widow." "Come now let us reason to- 
gether, saith Jehovah, though your sins be as 
scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though 
they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." 

Thus the prophet warns and again encourages 
the people of Israel. Then he adds, "If ye be 
willing and obedient, ye shall eat of the good of 
the land." 

The first and most common interpretation of 
this declaration is that Jehovah stands ready to 
give good things to him who is willing to repent 
of his sins and to live in obedience to the divine 
requirements of righteousness. I would say 
nothing today to weaken the force of that inter- 
pretation, for I believe that it is fundamental. 

But, like many other Scriptures, this text has 
interpretations which do not lie on the surface 

(29) 



30 COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

and which you must dig deeper to find. Some 
of these interpretations and lessons are particu- 
larly appropriate to this occasion today. 

Your graduation in courses of study in Agri- 
culture and Home Economics presents a fitting 
time for the study of the conditions and rewards 
of success, as suggested by the text which I have 
chosen. The words "willing" and "obedient" 
suggest an active, as well as a passive, participa- 
tion in the conditions of enjoyment. The pas- 
sive is that which most men have accepted it 
to mean. I do not resist God and if I do not 
disobey Him, He will reward me with good. 
This is passive. 

I. "Willing" is the most active faculty of the 
human mind. It represents choice, purpose, en- 
deavour, achievement. If you have chosen to 
follow a vocation and have acquired a vocational 
education, that choice, or the exercise of will, 
means activity, labour, industry. Industrious, 
then, is an interpretation I wish you to make of 
the word "willing." "If ye be industrious and 
obedient, ye shall eat of the good of the land." 

Industry is the condition of success. It is the 
condition of having an income. God does not 
hand us bread ready-made. You must knead 
your own dough, bake your own bread, make your 
own garments, contribute your own service, do 
your own share of work, if you would receive 
the benefit of any of God's good gifts. 



THE CONDITIONS! OF COUNTRY LIFE SUCCESS 31 

Industry is the most comprehensive preventive 
of wrong. Men usually neglect their own busi- 
ness when they injure others, and go into dissipa- 
tion and sin. Talents, gifts, opportunities are 
often very unequally distributed, but the possibil- 
ities of energy, industry, and persistence are shared 
alike by all men, and these are the qualities which, 
not only win, but command, success. To have 
the power of labour, and yet to be an idler; to 
have the gift of reason, and yet refuse to think; 
to have the illumination of art, and yet sing a 
poor song, paint a weak picture, or carve a soul- 
less statue is to fail for want of industry. 

You who are graduating have proven your abil- 
ity to work. Your contact with the problems of 
your science has taught you to think. Your train- 
ing has given you something of the illumination 
of knowledge by which to enrich, beautify, and 
glorify your work and your homes of the coun- 
try-side. The industry to carry these powers 
to success must arise within you. It must be the 
choice of will, constantly supported and enforced 
by the volitions of daily life. As such, industry 
is the first essential condition to the rewards of 
success. "If ye be industrious and obedient, ye 
shall eat of the good of the land." 

II. "Obedience" is the second condition of suc- 
cess here emphasized. Obedience implies law and 
authority. Law and authority obtain in three dis- 
tinct realms. There is natural or physical law, 



32 COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

the discovery and classification of which we call 
science. Hence to be obedient to natural laws 
is to be scientific. There is civil law which con- 
trols the relations of individuals as citizens of 
the state. Obedience to civil law is "good citi- 
zenship." There is moral and spiritual law, the 
obedience to which we call religion. Again, to 
paraphrase our text in the light of these facts, it 
reads: "If ye be industrious, scientific, a good cit- 
izen, and religious, ye shall eat of the good of 
the land." 

Though agriculture has been more tardy than 
most vocations or professions in arriving at a 
scientific basis, the day of. scientific method in 
agriculture has now fully come. 

While the prophet of more than twenty cen- 
turies ago, in speaking of man, could say: "He 
planteth an ash and the rain doth nourish it," 
the farmer of today knows why the "planter and 
the rain" are partners in the growth of the tree 
and the fruit which it bears. He knows why he 
must obey the laws of nature if he is to reap a 
harvest. He knows why and how to maintain 
the chemical conditions of the soil by which "the 
earth yields her increase"; how it is that there 
develops "first the blade, then the ear, and after 
that the full corn in the ear"; how it is that the 
seed produces "some thirty, some sixty, and some 
an hundredfold." And so because he is scientific 
and understands the laws of nature to which he is 



THE CONDITIONS OF COUNTRY LIFE SUCCESS 33 

consciously obedient, he rises to the second essen- 
tial of successful agriculture. 

Without this quality of scientific discovery and 
obedience to the laws of nature, you have no 
other promise than that of failure and defeat. 
He who would u eat the good of the land," must 
be obedient to law. 

But physical law is only the first and most 
elemental of all law. Civilized men constitute 
society and government. Social and civic laws 
are at the foundation of the state. The rights 
of protection of person and property are safe- 
guarded by civil law. Institutions of govern- 
ment, justice, education, charity, indeed the whole 
range of human relationships, beginning with the 
family, the primary unit of society, have their 
source and justification in law. Obedience to 
law constitutes the first essential of good citizen- 
ship, and he to whom the good of the land is 
vouchsafed must be obedient to civil law as truly 
as he is to natural law. 

Our agricultural populations have not been 
prolific in the production of criminal classes; in- 
deed, they have been, for the most part, law- 
abiding citizens. Yet these men are sometimes 
delinquent in the responsibilities of citizenship. 
The right of suffrage in a democracy is not only 
a right to be guarded, but it is a duty to be sacred- 
ly held and faithfully performed. The discharge 
of this duty is an important part of the obedience 



34 COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

to law which is essential to good citizenship. It 
is not enough that we shall not be guilty of crim- 
inal violation of law, but we must be constructive 
factors in the upbuilding of the state and the 
maintenance of its efficiency. Good government 
is one of the best goods of the land of which the 
obedient may partake. Peace and plenty go hand 
in hand, the former is essential to the latter. 

In Oriental countries one often sees today bar- 
ren wastes, with beggary, disease, and degrada- 
tion, where in ancient times, under better govern- 
ments, the land was productive of fruits and 
flocks and abundant harvests. 

Absence of law and order, disregard of prop- 
erty rights and personal security have turned 
fruitful vineyards and waving grain-fields into a 
desolation and a wilderness where wild beasts hunt 
their prey, and wilder men roam about to prey 
upon their fellows through robbery and murder. 
Only as men have law and obey it, only as they 
are good citizens, can they eat of the good of the 
land. It matters not whether this good be fruits 
of the field or the flock, or whether they be the 
fruits of liberty, of civil and social progress, or 
the domestic joys of home and family and fire- 
side. 

But the highest laws to which any being can 
conform are moral and spiritual laws. We have 
been talking about nature's laws but in reality na- 
ture has no laws. They are all laws of the In- 



THE CONDITIONS! OF COUNTRY LIFE SUCCESS 35 

finite. All the manifestations of law in nature 
are but the embodiment of the thoughts and con- 
ceptions of God as He transcribes them in the 
matter and form and forces of a natural world, 
His workmanship. 

We have been talking about the laws of so- 
ciety and government. These are but broken ex- 
pressions of the Divine lav/ of love, for through 
our glass darkly we apprehend that law of love 
when applied to human relationships. As every 
phenomenon of nature bears witness to the mys- 
terious energy that is behind it and is revealing 
itself therein, so every form of civil law which 
promotes peace and safety and human happiness 
is the voice of God speaking, through His chil- 
dren, the truth of His infinite love. These laws 
of matter and life and force; of government and 
business and citizenship, all reach back to one 
Source, one Authority, one Law-giver, one spirit- 
ual God and Father. 

But the Law-giver comes to man, His child, not 
only on the side of his physical body and mate- 
rial world-contact in natural law, nor yet alone 
in his property, among his fellow citizens and in 
his family, through civil law: but He comes to 
man directly and definitely on his spiritual side and 
through his spiritual faculties most intimately and 
personally of all His comings. This is through 
the medium of moral and spiritual law. It was 
Job who exclaimed, "There is a spirit in man and 



COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 



the inspiration of the Almighty giveth him under- 
standing." 

Everywhere and at all times the spiritual na- 
ture of man has stood out above all other gifts 
as his highest and most sacred endowment. Re- 
gard for his moral and spiritual nature and rev- 
erence for the Divine Creator and Revealer of 
truth is therefore man's most holy and exalted 
duty. Obedience to these spiritual laws is the 
highest warrant of manhood and of kinship to the 
Divine. 

"If ye be obedient ye shall eat of the good of 
the land," finds its fullest realization in reverence 
to God and spiritual things. Without this rev- 
erence, you are only half obedient. Without 
the good which it brings, you are only half fed. 
It matters little how much goods are stored in 
your granaries, or how many herds graze upon 
your broad acres. A starved soul means a 
starved life. 

Civic order and domestic tranquility create 
but the greater appeal for spiritual obedience; 
and, in default of it, leave only the great magnif- 
icence to the disaster of lamentable failure. In 
the exercise of religion which is spiritual obe- 
dience, the divinest within you blossoms to its rich- 
est fruitage and the best good of the land is 
vouchsafed you. 

I wish for you every good of material pros- 
perity. I wish for you domestic, social, and civic 



THE CONDITIONS! OF COUNTRY LIFE SUCCESS 37 

safety and happiness. But even more than these, 
I wish for you a personal fellowship with God — 
the joys of a spiritual obedience to crown and 
glorify all other goods. 

A personal religious faculty is the common in- 
heritance of mankind. May no one of you hide 
his talent in a napkin or bury it in the earth. 
What you are by personal obedience and what 
you wish those of your friends and your house- 
holds to be, you can best obtain by faithfully fos- 
tering the ordinances of religion in the home 
and in the church. May every one of you stand 
for a frank, open, and incarnate Christianity, 
cherished in your personal lives and promoted and 
fostered by your loyalty and devotion to the 
Christian churches which you upbuild and strength- 
en in your several communities. A Christian 
has but half done his duty until he seeks to bring 
to others the spiritual joys with which his own 
soul throbs. Character is the one thing that 
does not grow old; that does not wear out with 
use; that the more you give off from it to bless 
others, the more you have in store. This is be- 
cause it is spiritual. The mystery of life is con- 
ferred upon the seed that is dropped into the 
earth while the rain nourishes it. Some such 
mystery of multiplying life is conferred upon 
every generous thought, every self-sacrificing 
service, every labour of love, every token of loy- 
alty to your church and to the religious welfare of 



38 COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

your family and your community. All of this is 
in conformity with spiritual law. 

The thought of self-conquest, or of knowledge, 
or of charity, or of sonship to God steals into 
your soul. It is nourished by the love, the sym- 
pathy, the prayers of parents, of friends, of 
neighbours, through the home, the church, the 
Bible school, the prayer-meeting. But it only 
multiplies and yields a harvest when you pass it 
on to others. Does the harvest field remember 
the bright morning when the sower walked in the 
brown furrows and scattered the seed? No. Its 
bosom only throbs with the heavily laden har- 
vest. Somebody, in faith, cast the seed to be 
hidden from sight, to wither and to die, that in 
its death the mystery of life might be given to 
its multiplied posterity. 

So, it is not what remains in our granaries, 
not what we consume in our selfish gratification, 
but what we hand on to others that passes into 
our characters and becomes the possession of our 
lives. The long-forgotten deed or word has 
been caught up into some life and all hereafter 
is different because of it; not a seed any more, 
but a harvest; not an influence, but a character. 
Can you not see that only he who is obedient to 
spiritual law, only he who is reverent before a 
spiritual God and Father, only he who is devout 
in spiritual service and in bearing to others the 
fruits of that obedience and reverence, can truly 



THE CONDITIONS OF COUNTRY LIFE SUCCESS 39 

eat of the good of the land — that which gives 
character, soul development, and infinite joy? 

in. All that I have said so far of the "good 
of the land" has been incidental and illustrative. 
Yet we have kept it constantly before us. How 
could I teach you of willingness and obedience, 
of industry, science, citizenship, and religion, 
without holding up continually the ideals which 
inspire them and the rewards which they offer? 

The goods of the land are more numerous and 
abundant than any enumeration of their condi- 
tions of attainment can possibly be, as lavish as 
are the blossoms of spring, the grains of autumn 
wheat, the cattle upon a thousand hills; as abun- 
dant as are the liberties of government, the char- 
ities of philanthropy, the joys of family and fire- 
side; as rich as are the upliftings of soul, the 
glimpses of Divinity, the pulse beats of love. To 
describe them in all their multiplicity would be as 
to count the dew drops of the summer morning or 
number the stars in the dome of the heavens. 
They tell us of fruits, of flocks, and of flowers, 
of companions, of comrades, and of country. 
They tell us of heart, of hope, and of heaven. To 
all of these God bids you welcome and His only 
conditions are willingness and obedience. 

"If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat of 
the good of the land." 



Country Life Emancipation 



"Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make 
you free." John vm: 32 



1913 
(Agricultural School) 






COUNTRY LIFE EMANCIPATION 

Text. — "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall 
make you free." John vin : 32. 

XTO theme can be more appropriate for the 
^ ^ agriculturist than the one which is suggested 
by this text; namely, "Truth is the world's eman- 
cipator." 

Slavery always and everywhere has been due to 
ignorance of, or a disregard for, truth. There 
are many ways in which men have been enslaved. 
They have been held in physical bondage and driv- 
en like beasts of burden. Ignorance of nature's 
laws have made men cowards and slaves, and 
sent them forth cringing and cowering in their 
toil and superstition. Political andj economic 
oppression have crushed the ignorant and depen- 
dent classes. Even religious oppression and tyr- 
anny have overridden men too ignorant to throw 
off such thralldom. But everywhere that knowl- 
edge and truth have gone, liberty, freedom, and 
emancipation have followed in their train. 

The nineteen centuries since these words of 
Christ were uttered have amply verified the state- 
ment, that truth shall make men free. But the 
last century and the last generation have been 
richest of all in their emancipating work v because 
of universal education and practical application 
of science to all the problems of human life. 

(43) 



44 COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

When these words of Jesus were uttered, there 
was no modern or industrial science. Chemistry 
was unknown in its application to soils and sprays 
and foods. There was no social science with its 
philanthropy and systematized charity. There 
was no science of economics and politics by which 
to regulate the activities of men in commerce 
and in government. His life and His teaching 
were the first gifts of ultimate truth to religion, 
and the world was still to make the application 
of that truth of religion to life. Men little real- 
ize today that this principle of Jesus was an epoch- 
making utterance in the history of the world. 
When He lived, the majority of the human race, 
even in the civilized world, were slaves. The 
majority of the race that had preceded Him were 
slaves. In the great civilization of the ancient 
Egyptians, slavery predominated. I have stood 
upon the top of the great pyramid of Egypt, and 
looked up and down the valley of the Nile while 
I contemplated the relics of a civilization four, 
five, and six thousand years old. I have looked 
into the face of the sphynx which was hoary with 
age when Moses, as a child, lay in his little ark 
of bulrushes in the edge of the Nile : yet all these 
monuments of the past were builded by the labour 
of slaves, and the lash of the slave driver drove 
the toiler to his task. You can stand with me 
upon the Acropolis at Athens and overlook the 
crumbling ruins of the marble temples that once 



COUNTRY LIFE EMANCIPATION 45 

adorned that hill, and that were reared there 
four centuries before the birth of our Lord; and 
yet you should know that there were twenty 
slaves in Athens for every free man when she 
reared her proudest temples and wrote her most 
enduring literature. The Roman Empire 
crumbled and fell because in the struggles be- 
tween classes, human slavery was her greatest 
curse, and because the captives of a thousand 
battle-fields were brought as spoils of war to en- 
rich the victors and to serve them as slaves and 
serfs. 

In the face of such a history and of such con- 
ditions, Jesus Christ was the herald of a new 
doctrine; namely, of a universal democracy 
through the emancipating power of truth. 
Through the knowledge of the truth all men shall 
be free. 

The great struggle which this teaching had 
with heathenism, ignorance, and slavery is wit- 
nessed by the records of the Dark Ages. Little 
by little, however, the emancipation worked its 
way and the Renaissance and the Reformation 
were followed by the new science, the new indus- 
try, and the new social service. Democracy in 
government boasted political freedom; and yet 
human slavery lingered — a blot on our civilization 
— until, when, more than eighteen hundred years 
after Christ uttered His gospel of freedom, a 
great civil war broke the slavery of the American 



46 COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

negro; and the last great civilized nation of the 
world to throw off slavery became wholly free 
politically. 

But knowledge of truth gives many forms of 
freedom aside from political. Nowhere has 
truth done more to give men freedom than in re- 
ligion. Superstition, dogmatism, and religious 
tyranny have yielded steadily to the advance of 
education, culture, and modern science. 

Social emancipation has also had its rise in a 
wider extension of knowledge and a fuller appre- 
ciation of truth. The old social castes of India 
and China could never have grown up where 
universal education was enjoyed, and they will 
gradually be displaced by social freedom and de- 
mocracy as Christian education penetrates these 
benighted lands. As men become more univer- 
sally intelligent, the humblest labourers and the 
most dependent will rise in the scale of being and 
will approach more nearly toward the common 
standards of social equality. 

It is my wish, however, at this time, to empha- 
size, first, the power of truth to give industrial 
freedom. The education of this graduating class 
has been more particularly industrial, or voca- 
tional. You have been studying, in the courses 
of agriculture and domestic economy, the truths 
which make men free industrially and physically. 
The farmer of fifty years ago cut his grain with 
the hand sickle or the grain-cradle. He was the 



COUNTRY LIFE EMANCIPATION 47 

slave of heavy toil and of tedious and wearisome 
delay. The modern reaper and binder has liber- 
ated the farmer from such slavery. This splen- 
did machine is the application of science to indus- 
try. In its construction, truths of mechanics, 
eternally existing, have been discovered and 
adapted to ends which serve humanity. And 
so, in mechanics, the words of Christ are proven 
true; namely, u Ye shall know the truth and the 
truth shall make you free." 

Our predecessors in agriculture knew nothing 
of the chemistry of the soils, or of the food 
values for plants. They therefore ignorantly 
robbed the soil of its fertility and suffered the 
poverty, the toil, and the slavery of unproductive 
labour. Crop failures followed, lowering farm 
values, and abandoned farms come as a result. 
Agricultural education has given men knowledge 
of the chemistry of the soil, of fertilizers that 
enrich, of plant foods, of rotation of crops, of 
selection of seeds, of drainage, and of a thou- 
sand details of agriculture that liberate farmers 
from the old slavery. 

Enemies of vegetation uniformly seem to be 
an accompaniment of plant propagation. But 
science has revealed the nature of blight, of in- 
sect pests, and of fungus growths, and has de- 
vised remedies by which the intelligent horticul- 
turist may be free from the destructive forces that 
heretofore have been his despair. 



48 COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

The scientific knowledge of animals, of breed- 
ing, and the feeding and care of stock, have revo- 
lutionized the industry of animal husbandry. To 
be ignorant is to be a slave. To know the truth 
is to be free. 

And last, but best of all, science is being ap- 
plied to the home in which man dwells. The 
science of home-making is setting men and women 
free. Sanitation, food values, economies of time 
and toil and cost liberate souls. As health and 
happiness, aesthetic and ethical ideals count for 
more than lands, and stock, and bank accounts; 
so the home, the fireside, the table, and the par- 
lour, with the touch of a cultivated hand and heart, 
contribute most to the spiritual liberty of the race. 
To education in domestic economy, no less, then, 
than in agriculture, is this emancipation through 
knowledge of truth fulfilled. 

Physical science, however, is not the whole of 
truth. Valuable as are the formulae of chemis- 
try and the laws of biology and hygiene in our in- 
dustries and in human advancement, there is a 
branch of truth that rises still above the physical 
in its importance. We must now address our- 
selves to that branch; namely, the spiritual truth. 
Jesus, who uttered the words of the text, also 
said of Himself, "I am the way, the truth, and the 
life. No one cometh unto the Father but by 
Me." Jesus also prayed this prayer for His 
disciples: "Sanctify them in the truth; Thy word 



COUNTRY LIFE EMANCIPATION 49 

is truth.'* So that when Jesus said, "Ye shall 
know the truth and the truth shall make you 
free," it meant more than physical freedom, 
through the knowledge of the sciences of me- 
chanics, of chemistry, of biology, and of hygiene. 
It meant these, and beyond these, political free- 
dom and economic freedom and social freedom; 
but still more than all else, spiritual freedom 
through a knowledge of the Son of God Himself, 
who is the truth, the life, and the way. It meant 
also knowledge of the word of God, which, be- 
cause it is truth, has emancipating power. 

The things that have eternal values are the 
spiritual things. Material prosperity is transi- 
tory. Its power and its service are limited to 
this physical life. But u the fruits of the Spirit 
are love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, good- 
ness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control; against 
such there is no law." He that hath these char- 
acteristics is free in the fullest and largest free- 
dom. To have such freedom one must know 
Jesus Christ, and the Divine word. Being thus 
free and having these qualities of the spirit which 
never die, one enters into life eternal, even while 
in the enjoyment of the physical resources of phy- 
sical knowledge and physical freedom. Educa- 
tion that ignores these qualities is defective, what- 
ever else it may have to commend it to men. 
So it is that, while we strive to make education 
equip men and women for intelligent and sue- 



50 . COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

cessful industrial and vocational life and free- 
dom from the servitude and slavery of ignorance, 
we are not content unless they shall have acquired 
also that larger freedom which is spiritual and 
eternal. He who is not possessed of a religious 
experience and who is not fed by the institutions 
of religion is therefore defective both in his edu- 
cation and in his freedom. 

There is still one other phase of the emanci- 
pating power of truth that this occasion should 
emphasize. It is this; namely, the self-propagat- 
ing power of freedom and the responsibility of 
every free man for the emancipation of others. 

Teachers are a requisite for learning. Few 
men have ever made headway in knowledge who 
can not look back to an inspiring teacher whose 
personality and whose larger knowledge have led 
the way to the new fields into which his pupil has 
entered. Schools and colleges organize teachers 
and teaching material and equipment and make 
them available for any who may chance to seek 
them. So the knowledge of Christ must be car- 
ried to men who do not have it, by men who 
themselves have already been made free. 

It is to lay this responsibility upon your hearts, 
my dear young people, that I bring you this truth 
today. If we have been made free with the 
truth wherewith Christ can make us free, we in 
turn must become the heralds, the teachers, the 
preachers, the missionaries to carry this truth to 



COUNTRY LIFE EMANCIPATION 51 

others. I confidently expect the graduates of the 
School of Agriculture to be examples of good 
farmers and home-makers in their several com- 
munities; I expect you to be propagators of the 
new education, the new ideals of agriculture, a 
new spirit of scientific procedure, the new co- 
operation, the new social service. I expect you 
to promulgate among your fellows better schools, 
better citizenship, better philanthropy; and in this 
way to be the heralds of a new freedom which 
shall come to men through the knowledge of the 
truth. 

But your best service, your most important 
teaching and example will be realized only as 
you bring to your fellows glimpses of the truths 
of religion which shall insure to them the spirit- 
ual freedom, born of knowledge of the Son of 
God. When to industrial freedom, you have 
added political freedom, and social freedom, that 
higher freedom of the spirit, then can it be truly 
said of you, "Ye know the truth and the truth 
has made you free." Then are you worthy to 
be commissioned by Him who has said, "Go into 
all the world and make disciples of all nations." 

My young friends of the senior class, you have 
achieved in your completion of the school course 
a praiseworthy accomplishment. Your faculty 
and school associates and friends all congratulate 
you upon this happy and notable event. You 
are favoured among your fellows. Many young 



52 COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

people do not see the necessity for such a train- 
ing as you have acquired; some who would gladly 
avail themselves of it have not the opportunity or 
the encouragement to do so. You have seen 
the necessity, and you have had the courage and 
the perseverance to make the struggle and to 
hold out until the completion of the undertaking. 
You have had many enjoyments. You have had 
many difficult tasks. But the full measure of 
your success will be seen only in later years when 
It is proven how fully you have known the truth 
and have been, thereby, emancipated from the 
slavery of ignorance and selfishness and sin, and 
how fully you are able to carry to others that 
freedom with which your lives have been satur- 
ated, even to the point of contagion. 

The school with its faculty is an aid to educa- 
tion, but your achievements were not possible 
without your own labour, the exercise of will- 
power, of perseverance, and of self-control. 
Upon the possession of these qualities of mind and 
heart, we, your teachers, congratulate you. We 
also hope for you a large measure of happiness 
and usefulness as you use and enjoy the freedom 
into which you have entered, and as you point 
others to the source of that freedom. 

We have given you our love and our best 
service. Your future will depend upon your own 
wisdom and industry and faith, and your love to 
God and men. We shall follow you with our 



COUNTRY LIFE EMANCIPATION 53 

solicitude, our sympathy, our love, and our pray- 
ers. You are sons and daughters of the school 
to which we are devoting our labour and our 
lives. As alumni of the School of Agriculture 
and of Alfred University, you are now joining 
a great body of noble men and women who are 
our representatives — men and women who are 
fulfilling a worthy mission in life and in whose 
hands, very largely, the interests and good name 
of your alma mater rest. We believe in you. 
We expect good things of you. Success for some 
will be easier than for others, but we believe that 
each of you will labour honestly, not only to merit 
a fair measure of industrial success, but also to 
gain some distinction for the betterment of so- 
ciety, the strengthening of the church, and the 
fulfillment of life's largest mission in service and 
freedom through the truth. 

May God's rich blessing rest upon you, guid- 
ing you into such success, such service, and such 
spiritual experience, that of none it may be more 
true, than of you: u Ye shall know the truth and 
the truth shall make you free." 



God's Law of Growth 



"First the blade, then the ear, after that the full 
corn in the ear." Mark IV: 28 



1914 
(Agricultural School) 



GOD'S LAW OF GROWTH 

Text. — "First the blade, then the ear, after that the 
full corn in the ear." Mark iv : 28. 

TV yTUCH of the illustrative and teaching mate- 
•*■*-*■ rial which Jesus used was drawn from 
agricultural and rural life. He was a lover of the 
fields, the woods, the mountains, and the lakes. 
From these familiar scenes of His life and His 
work He drew the most beautiful and precious 
of His teachings and illustrations. It is natural, 
therefore, that we should find a text and a theme 
from some of the many agricultural references 
found in the words of Jesus. 

This text is a portion of one of the most beau- 
tiful of all such references. Notice its setting: 

"So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should 
cast seed into the ground ; and should sleep and rise 
night and day, and the seed should spring and grow 
up, he knoweth not how. 

"For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself ; first 
the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the 
ear. But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately 
he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come." 

In these few sentences is summed up the whole 
wonderful process of the planting of the seed, 
which must include the preparation of the soil; 
the waiting for nature to perform her mystery 
of life; the gradual development from the tiny 
shoot to the sturdy stalk and the full-grown grain ; 

(57) 



58 COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

and, finally, the reaper, the sickle, and the harvest. 

Here we have the faith which prepares the 
soil, plants the seed, and waits for the harvest. 
We have the sacrifice in the seed for the plant- 
ing. We have the industry in the labour of the 
sowing and the reaping. We have the obedience 
to law, which, while it can not tell how or why, 
obeys and trusts. And we have the rewards in 
the full ripe fruit and the harvest gathered. 

But it is particularly to God's Law of Growth 
that I wish to call your attention. The problems 
and processes involved in growth are applicable 
in an especial manner to the lives of young men 
and women just graduating from an agricultural 
school. It is to study with you some of these 
applications that I bring you this theme this morn- 
ing. 

I. First of all, growth is God's law. Many 
men never stop to take in that fact. When the 
soil is prepared, and the seed deposited in the 
earth, the farmer has reached the limit of his 
power. Some force outside of himself must stir 
the latent life in the tiny seed. "It springs and 
grows up, he knoweth not how." The little blade 
becomes the stalk by the same superhuman power, 
and the full corn fills the ear. 

No life comes full grown into the world. 
The tender infant helpless and dependent in its 
mother's arms can not grow because she wills it, 
but only by some superior power, outside of the 



GOD'S LAW OF GROWTH 59 

mother's direction. She may help to fulfill the 
conditions, but she depends upon God's law of 
growth to see her babe become a man. The hu- 
man race had its infancy. By God's law of 
growth, nations multiply and civilizations rise and 
develop. All the way down from this high pin- 
nacle of creative genius, the divine law of growth 
is ever expressing itself. The animal, the in- 
sect, the tree, and the plant, each has its mysteri- 
ous birth, its infancy, its growth, and its matur- 
ity. 

So it is that growth is the method God has 
put into nature by which the finished product 
comes from the simplest beginnings, — the plant 
from the seed, the oak from the acorn, the eagle 
from the egg, the man from the infant. Men call 
it Nature's law; they name it evolution; and they 
sometimes think they have divorced it from all 
thought of God. 

But evolution is only another name for a 
method of work or a mode of procedure. The 
force which generates the work, the life-germ in 
the seed, the processes by which it draws from 
the soil and the sunshine elements that give it size 
and maturity, these are something above and be- 
yond the mere method. They originate in the 
thought and in the power of the Creator, who 
uses the laws of growth as the method, only, for 
accomplishing the ends of perfection. 

So then, first of all, let us feel that Jesus was 



60 COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

speaking of God's laws when he was describing 
the method of the development of a plant. Also 
I beg you not to forget that it is a universal law, 
applicable everywhere, as much in the greatest 
masterpieces of creation, as in the tiniest details 
of the least flower or insect. 

II. I would have you note, in the second place, 
that your training or education for the vocation 
of agriculture, or of home-making, is but one step 
in this process which we have called God's law 
of growth. The human life, born into this 
world, and advanced to young manhood or wom- 
anhood is only the blade. The vocation chosen 
and thoroughly prepared for is not yet the full 
corn in the ear. It is rather the empty form of 
the ear. Life has begun to take shape. It is 
taking on the form of the matured life-fruit, but 
it has not yet acquired the content. Something 
has still to be added to life that your physical 
growth and your education alone have not yet ac- 
complished. 

Many life failures are due to the fact that 
people have mistaken their education for the fin- 
ished fruit of their lives. They have assumed 
that it is an end in itself, instead of being merely 
a means to an end. They have forgotten that 
education is just one step in God's law of growth 
and progress; and that when the education is ac- 
quired, the mature kernels of worthy achievement 



GOD'S LAW OF GROWTH 61 

have still to be added to life before the full corn 
is in the ear. 

But while this is true, it should not be overlook- 
ed that the shape, the form, and beauty of the 
full mature ear, are largely fixed in this step, or 
period of the growth, which we call education. 
If the education has been defective, if lawlessness 
or indolence or dishonesty has mis-shaped it, the 
full corn in the ear can never be symmetrical and 
perfect, no matter what the later attempts may 
be. 

But however well the education may have been 
planned and executed; however perfect the form 
of this unfilled ear, it is as yet only the form, a 
beautifully shaped head of wheat or husk of corn, 
but without any golden grains. It is an indis- 
pensable part of the process of growth, this which 
you are now finishing, but the process is only well 
begun, when you have successfully acquired your 
education. 

The tailor can not make a garment until he 
has obtained the cloth, and provided himself with 
a pattern. These he must have, then he can 
make the garment. In your education you have 
been forming the pattern and acquiring the cloth; 
now you have to make the garment. To build 
a house you must first have an architect design 
it, and with great care give its every detail, then 
you must assemble the materials. When all this 
is done, then you are only just ready to begin to 



62 COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

build. You have been designing your house, and 
assembling your materials; but as yet there is 
no house to shelter them from the storm, or to 
satisfy the aesthetic tastes of the refined and culti- 
vated occupants. Education is only one step in 
God's Law of Growth. 

III. Now we must turn to the final process in 
this Law of Growth: viz., maturing the grain, 
and gathering the harvest. Men call it "mak- 
ing good." Without this last process you have 
the blade without the ear, the blossom without 
the fruit. Up to graduation day all is prepara- 
tion. The real achievements of life are now to 
begin. You are now to test the strength of the 
stalk to bear the weight of the ear. You are to 
test the form of the case you have made to fit 
the kernels that should fill it. 

I have already enumerated the five essential 
elements of successful agriculture as suggested by 
the parable of the text: viz., faith which prepares 
the soil, plants the seed, and waits for the har- 
vest; sacrifice which gives the seed to decay in 
the ground that a new life may be born; indus- 
try which labours to prepare the soil, to sow the 
seed, and to reap the harvest; obedience to law, 
which plants and waits ; and finally the reward in 
the ripe fruit and the gathered harvest. These 
are all fundamental to success in agriculture. You 
can not omit any one of them and "make good" 
in your vocation. 



GOD'S LAW OF GROWTH 63 

But I wish you to give them a wider applica- 
tion today. They are all just as essential to char- 
acter-building as they are to the tilling of the soil. 
A man could apply them to his business only, and 
in that, only, succeed; while in his main life's prob- 
lems, he proves a miserable failure. 

The exercise of faith is essential to a wheat 
harvest, or a potato or an apple crop. But this 
is only the merest beginning of faith, as the crop 
is the merest beginning of success. Many a man 
trusts Mother Earth to do her work for him, 
and doubts the God who made the earth, who 
thought out and formulated its laws when as yet 
they were not. He expects the sunshine and the 
shower; but he does not expect the love, the 
thought, the sympathy, and the saving grace of 
the God who gives the sunshine and the shower. 
Faith in God inspires faith in our fellowmen. 
It gives a purpose and a meaning to life. 
It gives it character, stability, assurance, and 
power. It prompts to service and sacrifice; it 
prompts to love and reverence; it prompts to 
holiness and godly living. "Faith is the substance 
of things hoped for, the evidence of things not 
seen." Without this faith all life is dark and 
meaningless and fruitless. 

Then sacrifice is bigger than the mere giving 
of time and seed for the sake of a harvest. We 
like to see a man strong enough to deny himself 
something today, for the sake of a future bene- 



64 COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

fit. But sacrifice in its broader meaning is not 
merely a selfish self-denial. Sociologists tell us 
that society is now passing over from the old Dar- 
winian idea of the struggle for existence, to the 
nobler idea of the struggle for the life of others. 
It is the sacrifice that reaches beyond the selfish 
interest and sacrifices that it may serve. 

In your homes you will have loved ones for 
whom you will gladly labour and sacrifice; but 
Jesus taught us that the poor suffering Samaritan 
is our neighbour; and that to love God truly, we 
must love our neighbour as ourselves. He that 
giveth a cup of cold water to a thirsty soul, 
ministereth to the Lord. So it is that sacrifice 
reaches out beyond ourselves, beyond our own 
households, and ministers to all men for the com- 
mon and universal good. Sacrifice is essential 
for agriculture; it is essential also for religion. 

And the industry of the farmer is just as es- 
sential for character and for social and Christian 
service, as it is for agriculture. The lazy farmer 
will be the poor, disappointed, and defeated 
farmer. But there is no achievement without in- 
dustry. Hard work is the price men pay for 
success in service as much as for success in crop- 
raising. Your education costs labour. No idler 
can make a scholar. To minister to a sick or 
unfortunate neighbour will cost an effort. To 
build up and maintain the institutions of society 
and religion requires tireless energy. The coun- 



• or growth: 65 

try church in many places is dying out for want 
of men and women who are willing to work in the 
church and for the church. I have sometimes 
thought that industry in religion is one of the 
rarest of graces. Oh for men who are not afraid 
to do things in the church, and for the church! 

Obedience to law, the fourth element of the 
farmer's success, is, I think, the least of all un- 
derstood and appreciated when it is applied to the 
wider ranges of life. We boast freedom, democ- 
racy, independence, and, sometimes, even social- 
ism. The swing of the pendulum seems to be 
away from the old-fashioned, sturdy, and rugged 
obedience. Children in the home wish to be 
free from parental restraint. Students resent law 
and discipline in the school. Religion is tabooed 
because men do not think it any longer honour- 
able to be called obedient. 

Yet obedience to law is the highest possible 
sign of intelligence. The farmer who is wilfully 
ignorant of the laws of soil-fertility, of plant and 
animal life, and of mechanics; and him who 
blindly ignores these laws, we call unintelligent, 
or even a fool. But there is nothing more fool- 
hardy than the disregard of the laws of mind 
and spirit, and disobedience to God's laws which 
are revealed in religion. As intelligence is meas- 
ured by a knowledge of, and regard for, nature's 
laws, even more is it measured by a reverent re- 



66 COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

gard for those higher laws which operate in so- 
ciety, in ethics, and in religion. 

Not only is obedience the mark of intelligence, 
but it is the mark of honesty and of fidelity. 
There is no greatness, no goodness, no kinship 
to God, without obedience to His laws. 

But I thank God that after the faith, the sacri- 
fice, the industry, and the obedience, comes the re- 
ward. "The full corn in the ear", the harvest 
gathered and garnered. 

I am glad for the material rewards, crops and 
cattle and lands and money. The farmer, as 
every other man, is entitled to whatever he can 
honestly earn of these fruits of his labour. Wealth 
is .a requisite to culture and civilization. Every 
man should do a little more than merely to exist 
and supply the needs of his own family. He 
should add something to the sum-total of the 
world's wealth. 

The institutions of government, of society, of 
education, and of religion must be maintained by 
surplus wealth. There are the unfortunate for 
whom the prosperous must provide. It is an hon- 
ourable thing to accummulate property to be used 
as a consecrated means for human betterment. 
Wealth is God's special gift to this generation. 
Like others of his choicest gifts, it can be made 
either the greatest blessing or the greatest curse, 
according as it is consecrated to good ends, or 
prostituted to selfish and wicked purposes. 



^ GOD'S LAW OF GROWTH 67 

But the rewards of which I am thinking most 
today are not in money or material wealth. They 
are in character. They are in soul assets. They 
may exist where but little surplus wealth has been 
acquired. They are the result of the faith which 
reaches beyond nature up to God ; of the sacrifice 
which forgets self that it may serve others; of 
the industry which" toils for spiritual values; of 
the obedience to God and to Jesus Christ our 
Lord, who says, "Son, daughter, give me thine 
heart." This achievement, only, gives the re- 
ward which is eternal and that fadeth not away. 
This only is the full consummation of God's law 
of growth. "First the blade, then the ear, after 
that the full corn in the ear," can only be realized 
when the spiritual values are placed above the 
material values. 

My dear young friends, I have tried to point 
out to you today the laws by which material and 
spiritual progress are to be achieved. In 
growth there is no standing still. There is no 
arrested development. Growth means constant 
progress. Your bodies will cease to grow larger 
or stronger, but your minds and souls should 
grow larger, stronger, and purer day by day. 
Your education has helped to put you in the way 
to achieve this growth, but what your teachers 
can do for you, they have now largely accom- 
plished. We have learned to love you. We 
sympathize with you in your weakness; we re- 



68 COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

j ■ ■ ■ i 

joice with you in your strength, and in your vic- 
tories. We honour you for the brave and success- 
ful battle which you have waged, and for the 
obstacles which you have overcome. We expect 
you to be successful in your life work, and we 
hope and pray that the highest of all successes, 
the spiritual, may be given to you in large meas- 
ure. 

It would be gratifying to us to feel that every 
one of you is definitely surrendered to God and 
identified with some branch of the Christian 
church. 

If any one of you has not yet made that definite 
decision, this week — your last week of school life 
— will be the best opportunity that you will ever 
have to take that definite step, and I hope that 
you may have the grace to do it. 

We wish for you every joy and prosperity in 
your life work in the homes which you will es- 
tablish and in the personal experiences of your 
soul life. God bless you and keep you! make 
you happy and useful in this life, and bring you 
into His everlasting kingdom through Jesus Christ 
His Son ! 



God's Plan for Our Lives 



"Be thou a blessing." Genesis XII: 2 



1916 
(Agricultural School) 



GOD'S PLAN FOR OUR LIVES 

Text. — "Be thou a blessing." Genesis xn : 2. 

r* RADUATION from a vocational school, like 
^-* the School of Agriculture and Home Eco- 
nomics, suggests that the graduates have already 
begun to grapple with the problems of life-work 
choices. This text lays down a guiding princi- 
ple in all such decisions. In the light of this 
command, no person can decide successfully and 
wisely upon a vocation without taking into account 
the question whether or not he is to benefit his 
fellows by his life work. 

Agriculture and household sciences furnish a 
more than ordinary opportunity for the weighing 
of such considerations. An industry or vocation 
that consists mainly in the supplying of existence- 
wants to humanity, is rich in resources for service. 

But the narrative concerning Abraham, of 
which this text is a part, indicates not only that 
our lives are intended for a benevolent purpose, 
and to result in some good, but that God has a 
plan or programme for the lives of his children, 
and that we may ascertain, at least in general out- 
line, what that plan is, in order that we may follow 
it out more perfectly. It is for the purpose of 
studying the theme, "God's plan for our lives," 
that I have chosen the text, u Be thou a blessing," 
for this baccalaureate sermon. 

(71) 



72 COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

It is now a universally accepted axiom that in- 
telligence works by law, system, or plan. The 
architect or engineer succeeds only as he plans and 
executes in accordance with established princi- 
ples or laws. His intellect formulates an ideal 
conception. This conception constitutes his plan. 
Every timber and brace and ornament is fitted 
into the structure according to this plan. In- 
dustrial, commercial, social, and even religious 
success follow obedience to established laws, the 
outlines of rational plans. What we see in the 
achievements of man and of his application of in- 
telligence to achievement, is but the faintest sug- 
gestion of the Infinite intelligence acting in ac- 
cordance with Infinite law and plan. In na- 
ture, in intellect, and in spirit, the fact is kept 
constantly before us, that ends and uses are the 
regulative reasons of all existing things. The 
uses of things are to God, and to all beings with 
intelligence, like His, the warrant of plan and 
purpose. 

Often when we are the least able to under- 
stand the mystery of objects, processes, and phe- 
nomena, we are the most conscious that the sys- 
tem is so perfect that the loss or displacement of 
any member would fatally disarrange the plan. 
If only the smallest star in the heavens had no 
place to fill, the oversight would cause disturb- 
ance and disaster. There is nothing in the sum- 
total of the universe that can be dispensed with. 



GOD'S PLAN FOR OUR LIVES 73 

Every particle of air is moved by laws of as 
great precision as those which govern the heavenly 
bodies. 

The viewless and mysterious heat, transform- 
ing itself into energy and light, obeys laws with 
unfaltering exactness and is a witness to unchang- 
ing law, and to an intelligent plan. The seasons 
with their returning cycles bear also their wit- 
ness. "While the earth remaineth, seed-time and 
harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and 
day and night shall not cease."" 

Even in the tiniest flower, the laws of God are 
seen. Its colours are pencilled in ever the same 
tints. Its petals conform to their alloted num- 
ber. 

"Wondrous truths, and manifold as wondrous, 
God hath written in those stars above; 
But not less in the bright flowerets under us 
Stands the revelations of His love. 

"Bright and glorious is that revelation, 
Written all over this great world of ours ; 
Making evident our own creation 
In these stars of earth, these golden flowers. 

"In all places and in all seasons 
They expand their light and soul like wings, 
Teaching us, by most persuasive reasons, 
How akin they are to human things." 

Thus every minutest creation lifts its voice to 
man in testimony and speaks to him of a plan 
of God which, in its great circle of uses and order, 
includes all being and all life. Shall we say 
then that man alone, of all creation, is sporadic, 



74 COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

a freak in nature, that there is no place in God's 
thought for him, that he has no use to realize, no 
law to obey; that there is nothing to explain his 
existence, no plan by which to interpret him? If 
there were no revelation but nature, I might not 
make you believe it. But turning to the Bible, 
how clear and strong are the proofs i 

God has a particular care for every human 
soul. Though God cares for the sparrow, yet 
Jesus said to his. disciples, u Ye are of more value 
than many sparrows. The very hairs of your 
head are all numbered." He gives to every man 
talent. It may be one or two or five. And to 
him that uses well his talents, God doubles his 
powers, but from him that neglects them, he takes 
away even that which he hath. What is all this 
but the exhibition of God's personal care and plan 
for every life? 

Then there are specific examples of God's plan 
for men which show the conditions of education, 
training, and discipline by which men have been 
fitted to fill the places God has marked out for 
them. Moses, reared at the court of Pharaoh in 
Egypt, disciplined for forty years of service with 
Jethro and his flocks, is prepared to lead the 
children of Israel out of Egypt and through the 
wilderness to Caanan. David keeping his fa- 
ther's flocks, acquired the hardihood and courage 
which made him a conqueror of the giant Philis- 



GOD'S PLAN FOR OUR LIVES 75 

tine and the leader of the armies of Israel. 
Elisha from following the plow was called to be a 
prophet and a statesman. Jesus the Master, for 
thirty years with Joseph his father the carpenter 
— making plows and ox-yokes, and shepherd's 
crooks — was schooled to be the greatest teacher 
of the world. 

But added to the fact of the plan, is the ever- 
recurring call of God to some child of faith and 
obedience, to step forth into a larger field and a 
more definite mission, in order that God's great 
plan may be realized. Abraham was called to be- 
come the founder of a nation, and a blessing to 
his fellows. Joseph in Egypt, distinguishes God's 
call to him, and responds by the deliverance of his 
father's house from the land of famine. Sam- 
uel in the temple, as a child, heard, as he lay 
on his couch, the call of God to him to become 
the prophet of his people. Jesus, speaking of his 
mission as Saviour and Redeemer, said, u To this 
end was I born, and for this cause came I into the 
world." 

Paul the apostle, sought to "apprehend that 
for which he was apprehended of Christ Jesus." 
Then with an enlarged vision he declared, "In 
order that God might manifest His glory, He 
that called as vessels of mercy, not Jews only, 
but Gentiles as well"; "Whom he hath saved, and 
called with a holy calling, not according to our 



76 COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

works, but according to His own purpose and 
grace." 

In the light of these evidences of nature and 
of revelation, I bring you this morning, my young 
friends of this senior class, the great and per- 
sonal truth, the blessed truth, that God has a 
definite life plan for every human soul. He has 
called you by His providence and by His spirit. 
I wish you to feel the uplift of the inspiration and 
faith that there is a mission for each of you, a 
work for you to do, a service for you to render, 
as real and definite, and as important in its place, 
as any ministry of any servant of God in all the 
past. There is a something which you are called 
to become, which God will assist you to become, 
and which you can not miss, save as you fail to 
fulfill the plan of God for you. I would like 
to hold up before you today, in some true meas- 
ure, this divine biography which is marked out 
for you; upon the very verge of which you stand 
now at your graduation, and which you may ful- 
fill or defeat as you will. 

I should like to have you know the greatness 
of the thought that your life is linked up to the 
purpose of the Infinite. I should like to have 
you feel the thrill of the consciousness that your 
spiritual motor is connected up with the Divine 
power-house ; that the energy of the Eternal may 
reveal itself in you. I should like to have you feel 
the dignity such a conception gives to every hum- 



GOD'S PLAN FOR OUR LIVES 77_ 

blest task of life; the support that it gives in the 
trials and conflicts all must meet ; the impetus that 
it gives to send you forth to the consummation of 
your own excellence. But great and exalting as 
is this truth, there stands close beside it another 
truth, equally real and eternal, which we dare not 
forget. It is this, that while all things else serve 
their uses, and can not break out of their places, 
man may rebel and defeat the plan of God for 
him. 

We are able, as free beings, to refuse the place 
and the duties which God assigns us. He calls 
us to the best that is possible for us. We may 
ignore the call and sink to defeat and failure. 
To many such rebellious souls God demonstrates 
His justice, and His avenging power, as when 
the sentence of Pharaoh's judgment rests upon 
them. "Even for this purpose have I raised 
thee up, that I might show my power in thee, 
and that my name might be declared throughout 
all the earth." 

But some of you, with an anxious heart, may 
ask the question today, "How can I rise to the 
unfolding of God's plan for me? How can I 
get hold of this life plan for me and find my way 
into it?" Many a youthful mind just opening its 
eyes to the meaning of life and feeling the warmth 
of the sun of hope, has asked that question. 
Strong young men and women who have been 
fitting for a special service, yet to whom the 



78 COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

door of opportunity seems slow to open, have 
asked the question. All the details of the an- 
swer to these questions I can not give you. No 
one can tell them fully to another. But there 
are some things you all know, and putting these 
together I may help you better to see the plan, 
and to find the answer. 

I. In the first place; if God has a plan for 
every life, those conditions in which we find our- 
selves, by nature and circumstances beyond our 
control, are all included in God's plan for us. 
It is ours to accept these things, and, grateful 
for so much of good as they contain, and for 
the possibilities of discipline in the struggles 
we must make to rise, we may go forward with 
confidence and faith to the tasks that are at 
hand. 

All that pitiable cry of regret because of the con- 
ditions of birth, financial or social; because of 
home environments, influences, employments, 
hardships, struggles, etc. — the idle insinuation 
that "if a different lot had been assigned me from 
just that which I have, all would have been right" 
— all such complaints, you may know at once, are 
outside of God's plan for you. 

II. Again it is not in God's plan that any one 
should be called to be another than himself. Each 
life has a new chart of its own. God does not 
require it of you, you need not require it of 
yourself, that you have the same feelings or ex- 



GOD'S PLAN FOR OUR LIVES 79 

periences or capacities for achievements that an- 
other has. No man need seek to copy another 
man's genius, or personality, or triumphs. You 
only have to be yourself. Accept the chart which 
God unfolds for your life. Our measure of re- 
sponsibility is personal, and not in accordance 
with what other men are. To be a copyist, work- 
ing at the reproduction of a human model, is to 
have no faith in your significance, and to judge 
that God means nothing in your particular life. 
Such an effort can only result in weakness, dis- 
appointment, and failure. It is to beg or borrow a 
personality and a plan from another and to de- 
velop into an affectation and become an imposter. 

III. God's character will give you a basis for 
determining what God's plan is for you. All 
that He designs for you will be in harmony with 
His own character. He is good and just and true. 
Anything that is not just and good and true can 
not fall within His plan for you. All the false- 
hood, the evil, and the shame gather about those, 
only, who have left God's character and His pro- 
gramme for them out of account. 

iv. You have a conscience. This interpreter 
of duty, if kept pure and strong, is an index finger 
pointing out the path of duty in the plan of God. 
"Study to have a conscience void of offense toward 
God and man"; u That you may live in all good 
conscience," fulfilling His will. 

v. The Bible, that blessed revelation of the 



80 COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

Divine Will to man, is also an indispensable guide 
of those who turn to it for truth. "I am a 
stranger in the earth; hide not thy commandments 
from me," was the cry of a soul seeking the way 
of God from His Holy Word. 

vi. Prayer furnishes a means by which many 
a soul cuts a skylight, above itself, through to 
God. It is a way of turning on light and power 
from above; a way by which a man feels that 
the real, the solid, and the substantial is only that 
which has for its motive power the resources of 
the Invisible. "What man is he that feareth the 
Lord; him shall he instruct in the way that he 
shall choose." 

vii. The final test which I wish to hold up be- 
fore you today for knowing God's plan is that 
test given in the text, "Be thou a blessing." Into 
whatever tasks life shall beckon you, whatever 
doors may swing open before you, if there is 
not presented with it all the purpose and the op- 
portunity to be a blessing, you are failing to find 
God's plan for you. "Inasmuch as ye have done 
it unto one of the least of these, ye have done 
it unto Me," is Christ's estimate of service for 
Himself and for others. 

If selfishness prompts you; wealth, for wealth's 
sake ; influence, for the sake of popularity, or self- 
ish power; fame, ambition, pride, self-gratifica- 
tion, or aggrandizement: if you find an inner con- 
sciousness that these things form the motive of 



GOD'S PLAN FOR OUR LIVES 81 

your choices or actions, you may know that it 
is your own plan and not God's which you are 
following. God's plan is that every soul shall 
be a blessing. 

I can not say to you, my young friends of 
this senior class, as you look out before you with 
eager and aspiring hearts, just where you are to 
make your homes; which of the several opportu- 
nities now before you, you must accept. There 
are many possibilities before you, all within the 
plan of God for you. Personal responsibility 
for choice and decision He leaves with each of 
us, within the limits which I have pointed out. 
Aptitudes, talents, and tastes, when these are dedi- 
cated to Him, may all guide us in our choices 
and decisions. 

I have put before you certain fundamental prin- 
ciples. Day by day new vistas will open up be- 
fore you, showing you the farther reaches of the 
great plan which only the future years will fully 
reveal. 

Your teachers and friends congratulate you on 
the completion of your school course. We hope 
that you have acquired in technical knowledge, in 
the Alfred spirit, and in moral and spiritual power, 
those elements which will enrich your own lives, 
and enable you to enrich the character and power 
of the communities into which you shall go. Our 
love and our prayers will follow you. We pray 
that you may fully measure up to God's ideals for 



82 COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

you; that great blessing may come to you all, in 
your important service to the world as producers 
and home-makers; and that above all you may 
contribute something of richness and service to the 
world, whereby it will be said of every member 
of this class, "They fulfilled God's plan for them; 
thev were each a blessing to others, and an honour 
to God." 



The Stout Heart 



"Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and he 
shall strengthen thy heart/' Psalm xxii: 14. 



1915 
(Agricultural School) 



THE STOUT HEART 

Text. — "Wait on the Lord ; be of good courage, and 
he shall strengthen thy heart." Psalm xxvn : 14. 

TN bringing to you the theme of this morning, 
•*■ "The Stout Heart," I desire to discuss first 
the need for a stout heart, and second the source 
of the heart's strength. 

I. Courage has always been considered a 
praise-worthy quality, and its achievements have 
been heralded in song and story since the begin- 
ning of the race. In war men who are brave be- 
come heroes, captains, generals, conquerors. 

But war, we hope, will some day pass away, 
even though now the outlook seems dark. But 
courage is not confined to war. The exigencies 
of human life often call for a courage equal to 
any ever shown upon the battle-field. There 
are cases of rescue from fire and flood and fam- 
ine. There are patient ministries for the sick, 
the suffering, and the dependent. There are per- 
sonal losses, sometimes to be borne where the 
spirit of courage is so beautiful as to make such 
a life glorious. 

But courage and bravery extend also beyond 
the ministries which suffering and loss and grief 
entail. Rather the more commonplace duties of 
life are those on which I wish to dwell this morn- 

(85) 



86 COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

ing in the discussion of the needs for a stout 
heart. 

Graduation day is called commencement, be- 
cause it is not so much the end of student life 
as the beginning of professional or vocational 
life. Young men and women, as they finish 
school, step out upon the great stage of life to 
do a part for themselves in life's drama. They 
are no longer to be dependent upon home and 
school for support and instruction, but they now 
take up for themselves the tasks of earning a 
livelihood and of carving out a destiny. 

The choice of a field of endeavour, a profession, 
or a vocation requires a stout heart. There is 
no insurance company to guarantee against a mis- 
fit and against economic or industrial incompetency 
or mistake. There are many examples of the 
disaster of such incompetency or inefficiency. 

To hold one's self above the fogs and haze of 
personal distrust and misgiving, and at the same 
time to take the only real precaution against fail- 
ure that it is safe to trust : viz., adequate prepara- 
tion: this is one of the finest types of courage. 

Genius is a talent set to work by courage. 
Fidelity is the courage to be true to the last, and 
to do one's best under all circumstances. As many 
as are the trials, the discouragements, the con- 
flicts, the perils, the hardships of life, so many 
are the places where nothing will bring us to vic- 
tory if we are wanting in courage. The stout 



THE STOUT HEART 87 

heart teaches the soul to husband all its powers. 
Courage emancipates us from the things which 
wear away the life; which rasp and fret, and kill 
the soul by inches. 

Subjection to fear, doubt, and distrust is weak- 
ness. It is to be in bondage to feverish unrest. 

How clear and strong is the life into which 
the virtue of courage enters day by day. There 
is no waste; no loss of energy; no bleeding, torn, 
and quivering heart, that has the shield of hope 
taken from it, and that lies at the mercy of the 
cruel taunting world, whose very breath chills and 
crushes its wasting life. Such courage is reserve 
power. It is assurance. In peaceful, trustful 
confidence it does its day's work, and knows that 
when one's best is done* the day's work is well 
done. 

But the brave choice of a career, even though 
it is known to have hard tasks, and to require a 
stout heart, is not the end of the young man's 
need of courage. With this choice, there come 
a thousand other choices to be made. What 
shall be his standard in his profession, business, 
or vocation? By what associations are his 
ideals of character to be fixed? What kind of 
a citizen is he to be? Is his aim to be for self 
alone, or for the common good? What kind of 
a home does he propose to establish? Will he 
have the courage to fix its ideals high, and then 
live up to these ideals; or will he drift with the 



COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 



current and let circumstances make his home, or 
break it? If children bless his home, will he be 
devoted to their welfare, or will he make them 
the instruments for increasing his wealth without 
reference to their own development, and their 
own spiritual needs? No weak-hearted man can 
answer these questions with assurance and faith. 
Only the stout heart can meet them in noble ac- 
tion. 

All this is general courage, and applies equally 
to all men and women. Whosoever the brave 
soul may be, it does not tremble at the shadows 
which surround it. It shrinks not from the foes 
which threaten it, nor hesitates and falters, nor 
stands still, despairing among the perplexities and 
trials of our common life; but it moves steadily 
onward, without fear, if only it can keep itself 
strong and clean and true. 

Surely this is what the Psalmist meant when he 
said: "Wait on the Lord, be of good courage, and 
He shall strengthen thy heart." Such stoutheart- 
edness is honourable. All men pause and rever- 
ence it when it comes before them in the glory of 
its strength. It is useful, and he who has it will 
be led straight on to success and victory. It is 
our only assurance of the ability to impress upon 
our surrounding conditions the forces of our per- 
sonality, and to participate successfully in the 
world's achievements. 

But I must help this senior class, graduating 



THE STOUT HEART 89 

in Agriculture and Home Economics, to see par- 
ticularly how the stout heart is necessary. Your 
life will call for it in some ways that other activi- 
ties do not. If a man is a mechanic, and does 
his day's work with his machine, he has earned 
his day's wage, and lies down at night with no 
problem as to his earnings, or as to the fruitage 
of the seeds he has planted. 

The teacher draws his salary whether his pu- 
pil succeeds or fails; the lawyer his fee, whether 
his client wins or loses; but not so with the 
farmer. It was the Wise Man who said: 

"In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening 
withhold not thy hand ; for thou knowest not which shall 
prosper, whether this or that, or whether they both shall 
be alike good." 

No man trusts so much to nature and to na- 
ture's God; yet with a stout heart, no man, so 
much as the farmer, knows that on the whole 
he is safe. His work will tell, and his success 
is assured. 

There is no finer exhibition in all history of 
the stout-hearted man and his great achievements, 
than is seen in the pioneer farmers who settled 
this new land, cleared the forests, reared homes, 
and established schools and churches, throughout 
all this great American continent. They were 
men who waited upon God, who felt the strength- 
ening power of His word and of His spirit, and 
then went forth to shape the destinies of a na- 
tion. 



90 COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

I some times regret that the younger genera- 
tion can not look back to those pioneer times and 
realize the stress through which their fathers and 
grandfathers lived. I wish you could have in 
your minds a picture of the log cabins in which 
many of them were born; and the primitive sur- 
roundings amidst which they began to work out 
the cultivated fields and farms and homes which 
you now behold. With what stout hearts they 
had to face the forest, the savage, and the wild 
beast; and to look ahead a hundred years to 
fruits of their labours which only their children 
and grandchildren might enjoy! 

Yet we have as much need of the stout heart 
as they. The changed conditions have brought 
added cares, burdens, and handicaps of which 
they never dreamed. Our fruit trees are beset 
by countless pests, our cattle suffer from germ 
diseases never heard of by them, our fields have 
had the cream of fertility taken away. Our chil- 
dren have more problems than theirs. They 
have keener competition, and they must have 
more training than the "little red school house" 
can give them. They have temptations in the 
towns and in the cities that were unknown to 
our fathers. Our churches in the country are 
now waning in power, rather than bursting into 
new life and efficiency. Oh how much there is, 
young people, for you to do to meet these new 
tasks and problems, to restore the fertility of 



THE STOUT HEART 91 

the fields, to protect the herds and the trees, to 
transform the country schools, to rejuvenate the 
country church, and to elevate rural ethics! 

If ever men and women needed stout hearts, 
you need them. You are to go out to society as 
professionally trained for your life vocation. 
You are to go to these communities to be the lead- 
ers, the examples, the teachers, and the inspirers 
of your fellows. Not merely to squeeze a sub- 
sistence out of the soil, not alone to earn a com- 
petence is your task; but to uplift your communi- 
ties, to transform ideals, to improve morals, to 
make the world better and happier. 

It is no easy task, this to which you give your 
young and hopeful Jives. You will establish 
homes; model homes, let us hope. But all around 
you will be the homes of people whose inertia will 
be slow to be influenced by your labours and your 
love. 

Mercenary men will tell you that to get along 
amidst such neighbours as you have, and with 
such competitors as you have, you will have to 
shade the truth and falsify the measure. To re- 
sist such temptations will require stout hearts. 

With all the knowledge the school has given 
you, you have just begun to learn. You will 
have to be students all your days. New problems 
will arise whether it be on the farm, with the 
herd, the flock, the crop, or in the home with 
the health and education of loved ones. It takes 



92 COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

a brave soul to be a student every day; to keep 
young, to keep out of ruts; to keep up with the 
procession; to satisfy your own love that you have 
done your best when a precious life is hanging in 
the balance, and all its destiny may depend upon 
today's care and ministry. Stout-hearted men and 
women we need. I pray that such you may all 
be. 

ii. Now we must turn our attention to the 
source of the heart's strength. 

It is no fanciful and unattainable picture upon 
which we have been looking. It is a possibility 
for which a specific method is given in the text. 
Here we have not just a hint, but the full revela- 
tion of the process by which any one may secure 
this divine gift of a stout heart. 

"Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and 
He shall strengthen thy heart." The stout heart 
is a God-given power, but it is dependent upon the 
attitude of the soul toward God. We are ac- 
customed to associate the phrase, "Wait on the 
Lord," with the idea of worship only, or with pas- 
sive submission. These ideas may be included in 
the thought, but they give only the minor part of 
its meaning. The word translated "wait" means 
primarily to twist or bind together as cords or 
strands are twisted or bound together into a rope. 
Hence by union to be firm and strong. From 
such a union of the soul of man with the Infinite 
there is generated confidence, assurance, expec- 



THE STOUT HEART 93 

tancy, trust. But the root idea is union with, or 
harmony, fellowship, united action, common pur- 
pose, love. 

It is in such a merging of the life of man with 
the great thought and plan of God, that we find 
the source of the stout heart. If as a farmer or 
a home-maker, you can be so much bound together 
with God in a common thought and plan, that 
you are in partnership with Him; then you can 
claim His promise that He will give you a stout 
heart, you have then drawn upon the source of 
the Divine Strength, and all the resources of the 
universe are at your command. 

There is no duty so small, no trial so slight, 
that it does not afford room for this union with 
God. It has a meaning and a value for every 
phase of your life and of its problems. It is 
appropriate for the field and for the parlour; for 
labour and for recreation; for tears and for song. 
There is a man's courage. There is a woman's 
courage. There is courage for the parent and 
courage for the child. There is courage to stand 
still, courage to go; courage to agree, and courage 
to say No. But in everything, and everywhere, 
it finds its strength and its worth in union with 
God, and its failure and defeat when apart from 
Him. 

The most prolific source of the uselessness of 
men who are never more than children, is found 



94 COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

in just this lack of union with God. They are 
men of whom nothing worse ought to be said than 
that they fail of any attainment, and of whom 
nothing better can be said, than that they are not 
willfully corrupt or vicious. They have not the 
stout heart that is born of conscious union with 
God. 

There is in every individual an amount of right 
conviction, which, if it were set free by a stout 
heart, would triumph over the evil that is in the 
heart. There is reserve power in every normal 
person, if it could be conserved and brought into 
full play, to eliminate from our tastes and desires 
everything that is not elevating in moral tone, and 
that does not tend to the fullest development of 
character, and the fullest realization of the king- 
dom of Christ on earth. 

We have intelligence enough to know the good 
when we see it, and to catalogue it where it be- 
longs ; and with a stout heart we shall be able to 
stand up and discriminate between the good and 
the useless; between the virtuous and the vicious. 
God has given us minds capable of culture and 
refinement. We have artistic natures that are 
elevated by noble exhibitions of thought and pur- 
pose, by the representation of lofty types and 
ideals ; by the representation of undying love and 
unyielding fidelity. The loftiest aspirations of 
religion, the purest sentiments of patriotism are 



THE STOUT HEART 95 

latent within us, and can be stirred by some glimpse 
of the soul's kinship with God. 

I glory in the possibilities for the education 
and culture of the human mind; and esteem every- 
thing that aids that culture as a gift from God. 
I am desirous that these best things should be 
available for you, but I am equally desirous that 
you have the strength of heart to eliminate from 
your tastes and desires, and from your indul- 
gence, everything that will cherish or condone 
lower thoughts and lower ideals. 

Young friends of this splendid graduating 
class, it will fall upon you to set standards of in- 
dustry, of culture, and of courage. The social, 
the intellectual, and the religious progress of your 
communities is largely in your hands. It is a 
tremendous responsibility, and it is a riigh privi- 
lege to which you are called. 

Your teachers who have laboured with you 
and for you, have learned to love you and to 
have confidence in you. We send you forth to 
your life's work with our prayers and our best 
wishes. We want you to be successful, useful, 
happy citizens. The knowledge and discipline 
which the school has given you, will help you in 
the accomplishment of these ends. But your 
best asset will be the stout heart which comes 
from union and harmony with God. 

Wait upon Him by weaving yourselves into His 



96 COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

purpose and plans for you, and you will have the 
strength to "mount up with wings as eagles, to 
run and not be weary, to walk and not faint." 
May the Heavenly Father keep you continually 
in His love and grace; and bring you, ultimately, 
to the fullest joys of His Everlasting Kingdom. 
"Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and He 
shall strengthen thy heart." 



The Larger Vision 



"Thou shalt see greater things than these." 
John I: 50 



1915 
(College of Liberal Arts) 



THE LARGER VISION 

Text. — "Thou shalt see greater things than those." 

John i : 50. 

JESUS spoke these words to a new disciple. 
Nathanael was a good type of an honest stu- 
dent. It was a new story that Philip was telling 
him. One out of Nazareth had been found of 
whom Moses in the law did write — Jesus of Naz- 
areth, the son of Joseph. Nathanael was evi- 
dently not an ignorant man and he was thought- 
ful. People have sometimes pictured him as at 
first a doubting Thomas. But Nathanael was a 
high type of man. He was something of a 
scholar and he was a thinker. For such a man 
there was here in this new story of Jesus of Naz- 
areth a strange combination, if not a contradic- 
tion. "Jesus of Nazareth, of whom, in the law, 
Moses and the prophets did write, the son of 
Joseph." 

Now this Nazareth had not been mentioned 
with any prophecy of a Messiah. There is no 
mention in all the Old Testament of any town 
by the name of Nazareth, much less as the home 
of Israel's promised Saviour. This Nazareth 
is the least promising of Jewish towns. It not 
only has no Old Testament history but it is a 
little unimportant village in Galilee. The coun- 
try of Galilee had been subdued and depopulated 

<99) 



100 COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

by the kings of Assyria. Its population, like 
that of Samaria, was a mixed and heterogeneous 
kind; so that in later times it was called "Galilee 
of the Gentiles/' because there was an admixture 
of Phoenicians, Syrians, Greeks, and Arabs, with 
a few Jews. The Galileans were a people of 
provincial character and dialect, rough and un- 
couth; obnoxious to the Jews, and particularly so 
to those of Judea. Why should Nathanael expect 
the Prophet of the Lord to come from Nazareth? 
And as for this Joseph of Nazareth, of whom 
Jesus was said to be the son, what prophecy had 
connected the name of Jesus with him? 

And so we do not wonder that Nathanael, the 
student of history, the student of Old Testament 
prophecy, the man who thought for himself and 
who dared to question that which did not appeal 
to him as truth, should exclaim when Philip told 
him this story of Jesus, "Can any good thing 
come out of Nazareth?" What an answer for 
a student was Philip's when he said to Nathanael, 
"Come and see." 

Nathanael could question, he could honestly 
doubt; but he was not afraid to look for him- 
self. He had no prejudice that would prevent 
investigation. Neither the strangeness nor the 
improbability of the story, nor fear of criticism 
by the orthodox would prevent him from making 
an investigation for himself. So Nathanael came 
to Jesus, for we are told that "Jesus saw him 



THE LARGER VISION 101 

coming to Him and saith of him, Behold an Israel- 
ite indeed, in whom is no guile." 

When this student, this honest thinker, began to 
ply Jesus with his questions, and when Jesus an- 
swered candidly and gave evidence of His char- 
acter and mission, Nathanael accepted the evi- 
dence, not by tradition or by story, but by personal 
experience, by "coming to see," and when con- 
vinced, declared openly, honestly, and frankly his 
belief. "And Nathanael said unto Him, 'Rabbi 
(Teacher) thou art the Son of God. Thou art 
the king of Israel.' " Then the great Teacher 
led him on still further in his faith and said to 
him, "Because thou hast seen these evidences 
of my Messiahship, believest thou? Thou shalt 
see greater things than these." 

In this experience of Nathanael and in Jesus's 
promise to him, is embodied the method of all 
intellectual and of all moral progress for the in- 
dividual and for the race. It suggests the 
theme which I wish to study with you in this 
sermon; namely, the larger vision for the individ- 
ual and for society. 

Christ's remark to Nathanael was just as true 
of John and Andrew and Peter and Philip, other 
disciples whom He had called, as it was of Na- 
thanael. It has ever been true that honest 
searchers after truth find fuller and fuller revela- 
tions of the Divine made known to them. Any 
man who will come and see can have the evidence. 



102 COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

And the more he sees and experiences, the more 
he shall see and experience. a He that willeth 
to do His will shall know of the doctrine. 1 ' 

Exalted character is not a thing to be fully 
comprehended with a simple acceptance of a truth 
or in a single day's or year's experience. It is a 
growth, an evolution, a progress. The enlighten- 
ing and the Christianizing of a nation or of the 
world is not a work to be achieved in a single 
generation, nor in a century; but it is to be a 
gradual unfolding of the Divine ideal as the gen- 
erations work out the reconstructed life of a na- 
tion or a race whose faith is rooted in the princi- 
ples of the Kingdom of God. 

I. I wish to study the larger vision as it re- 
lates, first, to the individual. Growth in any 
noble experience can come only to one who is an 
honest, open-minded student; to one who is will- 
ing to "come and see." This view excludes the 
theory that religion is a mere matter of emotion. 

It has been one of the perils of religion that 
emotionalism, some exaltation of feeling into 
ecstasy or depression into floods of tears, con- 
stitutes religion. Jesus offers the questioner evi- 
dence. He says, "Be convinced by making a test 
of the character of truth." He respects the 
honest doubt by offering proof. 

When Thomas could not believe that Jesus, 
who had been crucified, was risen from the dead, 
and that it was the same Lord he had known 



THE LARGER VISION 103 

and loved, whom he again met, Jesus challenged 
him to investigation. "Reach hither thy hand, 
feel of the prints of the nails in my hands, and 
thrust thy hand into my side into the wound of 
the spear." "Be convinced upon evidence," he 
would say to the doubting Thomas and to the 
questioning Nathanael. "There is plenty of evi- 
dence, and little by little as you seek the truth, 
as you open your heart to receive it, you shall see 
greater and greater things and shall be more and 
more convinced." 

This theory of spiritual growth gives us en- 
couragement to look for better results of our 
efforts as we grow older and advance in intel- 
lect and moral attainment. Nathanael was a 
young disciple. He had had but little experience. 
He had doubted Jesus's authenticity and had given 
his reasons. He might always have grieved 
over his doubts. He might have said, "I am 
fatally weak and skeptical. There is no chance 
for me." But "No," he says, "If there is a 
chance to see more for myself, I will go and see 
it." Then Jesus compliments him and says, "Be- 
hold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile." 

What an attainment! Many a man would 
have thought, "Now I must be at the summit of 
religion." But no ! Jesus says, "You have just 
begun. You have still before you the best of 
religion, the greatest things to see are yet to 
come." 



104 COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

Young men and women who come to gradua- 
tion, and are congratulated and honoured by 
their college-mates, their teachers, and their 
friends are just about where Nathanael was 
when he had made the effort to investigate for 
himself; and when he was congratulated by Jesus 
as a true Israelite. But like Nathanael you are 
not at the end, but just at the beginning, of at- 
tainment. The Master is saying to you, as He 
could never have said before: "Thou shalt see 
greater things than these." 

The fatal error of many a college man has 
been that the first applause of graduation was 
his final achievement. "What an attainment!" 
he has said. "I am now at the summit of life" ; 
and here he has halted as though the race were 
run. But no ! He has not yet seen the full pos- 
sibilities of his life. The greater vision is still 
before him. 

Then, too, this message of the larger visions 
brings its promise, as well as its warnings. 
There are some things that you can not under- 
stand and explain today. Do not despair, there 
are many mysteries of life yet to be unfolded. 

It is not necessary to settle all the questions 
that perplex the mind today. "Come and see." 
Wait while you look, and look while you wait. 
Reverent study of God's word will open its treas- 
ures to you. Exalted poetry and parable will yet 
be clear to you as teaching the great lessons of 



THE LARGER VISION 105 

God's over-ruling providence and care for His 
children ; and the figurative narrative will be seen 
to be a necessary part of the great truth of pro- 
gressive revelation. 

Do not stumble over these obstacles. "Thou 
shalt see greater things than these." And do 
not be discouraged with men about you if they 
seem slow to grasp the truth which is so plain and 
so precious to you. Tomorrow they may see 
greater things which you see today. The peril 
of intellectual and moral inertia, of satisfied con- 
tent and indolent repose, is no less real and 
threatening than doubt itself. 

I trust that you have all definitely chosen to 
be disciples of Jesus Christ, that you have heard 
the invitation to "Come and see," but I say to 
you, my dear young people, there are greater 
things in store for you. There are new revela- 
tions, new experiences, new joys, new fields of 
richness and love to be explored as the Master 
takes you more and more into His confidence, and 
your enlarging love and enlarging faith enables 
you to see more and more of His infinite perfec- 
tion and beauty and love. 

Jesus Christ will show you His power to over- 
come persistent and insidious temptations if you 
will come to Him for help. That is a greater 
miracle than the withering of the fig tree or the 
turning of the water into wine. He will give you 
power to bear losses and sorrows and bereave- 



106 COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

ments. That is greater than any physical mira- 
cle. He will help you to make sacrifices which, 
as new disciples, you do not dream that you can 
make. How good it is of Him that we do not 
see the end from the beginning, that the sacri- 
fices and the losses come only one at a time when 
we are even then learning how to meet them! 
The greater things that we shall see are in no 
small part the larger faith and power which can 
make sacrifices and can find joy in giving and 
in giving up, and in serving and ministering to 
humanity. 

Then I am glad also for the gradual revela- 
tion of the power to do work. How little we 
know of what we really can do, of what we really 
ought to do, and of what we shall really have to 
do! If we could see it all now, how we should 
shrink! But we see today's task and we have 
grace to master it and in the doing the strength 
is increased and the greater things we shall see 
tomorrow will include the greater strength for 
the greater task. 

II. I should like to have you note, in the sec- 
ond place, the progress of society as a fulfillment 
of Christ's promise, "Ye shall see greater things 
than these." I wish you to see this progress 
because of the vision of a life work for human 
welfare which it opens before trained men and 
women. 

In Christ's day the world was pagan except 



THE LARGER VISION 107 

as in Palestine there was a distorted knowledge 
of Jehovah. And in Palestine, Hebrew society 
had degenerated almost to the pagan standards 
of life. The legalism of the priestly order had 
even robbed the family and the marriage tie of 
much of their sanctity and exclusiveness. Heathen 
practices had cast their blight over the land. 
Slavery was an almost universal institution in 
Jesus's time. 

Against all of this, the new doctrine of the 
kingdom of love and righteousness which Jesus 
came to preach had to oppose itself and to plant 
its standards. Opposed by the laxness of the 
heathen world and antagonized by the formalism 
of Hebrew priestly law, this new Gospel of the 
Kingdom was but the mustard seed, the tiniest of 
seeds. It was to be planted and watered and 
tended until it could take root and grow. It was 
a Herculean task to supersede all paganism and 
formalism and legalism with vital spiritual right- 
eousness. Unless Jesus could have promised His 
disciples that greater things were in store for 
them as the Kingdom advanced, it were a sorry 
prospect of success. But He had promised that 
the mustard seed should bring forth a great plant 
with stalk and branches on which the birds could 
lodge. But it must take time and labour and 
future generations to accomplish the result. Wit- 
ness the contest of the centuries! Christianity, 
superficially adopted by the Roman Empire after 



108 COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

a bitter persecution of three hundred years, and 
then in peril, worst of all, by its own advocates; 
adopted by Rome to be Romanized and pagan- 
ized, and to require the whole of the mediaeval 
centuries and the Reformation to reform it. And 
yet through all this conflict the newer and greater 
faith has been crystallizing. Today the Chris- 
tian nations are sending their missionaries by the 
hundreds and by the thousands into every heathen 
nation under the sun. China, India, and Africa 
are awakening to a new social, religious, and, in- 
deed, political consciousness, because of this great 
transforming power which we are seeing wrought 
out before our eyes. Surely, we are seeing 
greater things than were seen in Christ's day or 
by the disciples whom He first commissioned to 
preach His gospel. 

Then there are advancing ethical ideals which 
are in fulfillment of Christ's promise that we shall 
see greater things as the years pass on. No one 
who is a student of the problem can doubt that 
there are growing temperance ideals among Chris- 
tian people. While it may be true that in cer- 
tain classes of society, where men and women 
abandon themselves to excesses and to vice, the 
consumption of intoxicants is on the increase ; it is, 
nevertheless, true that among a growing percen- 
tage of our population as a nation and among 
thoughtful people, the use of intoxicants as a bev- 
erage is growing rapidly less. A larger portion of 



THE LARGER VISION 109 

the territory of the country than ever before is dry 
territory, and a larger percentage of Christian 
people than ever before are total abstainers. In- 
dulgence is condemned now by industrial corpora- 
tions, railroads, and business men in general. 
These industries have become the allies of the 
church in making a strong fight for a manhood 
that is free from the curse of strong drink.* 

Gambling is looked upon with much more dis- 
favour today by all high-minded citizens than it 
was a few generations ago. In the early history 
of Yale University^ and Brown, and Union, and 
other colleges, lotteries were used for the accumu- 
lation of endowments. These lotteries were not 
only sanctioned, but legalized, by State legislation. 
Today such methods would have the approval 
neither of Christian citizens nor State legislatures. 
The state-wide campaign for the overthrow of 
race-track gambling a few years ago, is ample 
proof that the ethics of men are improving in rela- 
tion to the sin of gambling. 

There is also in our day a wide-spread awak- 
ening in regard to economic justice. Industries 
have too long, and too much, disregarded the 
rights and the needs of the labouring and more 
helpless members of society. A readjustment 
of economic and social relations and privileges 
is now being sought. Public feeling demands it 
and the day is steadily drawing nearer when a 

•Since the delivery of this sermon the Prohibition Amend- 
ment to the United States Constitution has been adopted. 



110 COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

better economic and social justice will be accorded 
to all members of society. Here again all stu- 
dents of the subject must realize that Christ's 
promise, u Ye shall see greater things than these," 
is being fulfilled in our own generation and before 
our own eyes. 

Although there are just now clouds over the 
political horizon, I am confident that I speak the 
truth when I say that the better things which 
Christ promised are being wrought out by human- 
ity even now; not fully, to be sure, but they are 
surely coming. When Christ lived and spoke, 
the tyranny of the Roman yoke was upon the 
whole world. For centuries then absolute mon- 
archy dominated the ideals of government. But 
absolute monarchy and despotic government have 
been weakening under the assaults of democracy 
and constitutional government. Russia has lib- 
eralized her government. China is a new repub- 
lic. In Mexico, time will bring the long-sought 
liberties as fast as the enlightenment and civiliza- 
tion of the people can crystallize into a unified 
effort for liberty. 

In Europe, where old civilizations have been 
developing along the two well defined lines of 
democracy and autocracy, these two forces have 
now finally closed in upon each other in a death 
grapple. There can be no doubt as to what the 
ultimate outcome will be.* 



*The reader should bear in mind that this sermon was 
delivered in the midst of the great World War. 



THE LARGER VISION 111 

Democracy, whose stately stepping, sometimes 
delayed, but never vanquished, has been heard in 
every land, is spreading her mantle, now dripping 
with blood and tears, wherever the cross of 
Christ has lead the way. Poor, struggling, pro- 
testing, agonizing, desperate Germany will not 
emerge from her carnage without the birth-pangs 
of a new political liberty for her people. 

The greater things which the Christ has prom- 
ised can not be fully revealed until this too is 
accomplished. The blood and treasure that are 
now poured out like water, tend, whether con- 
sciously or unconsciously, to the accomplishment 
of this ultimate divine end. The greatest mira- 
cle of the centuries is the vision of the universal 
brotherhood of man. No clouds of war can per- 
manently blind humanity to that vision, since its 
golden light has once risen from the cross to 
illuminate the world. 

It is not a matter of despair, or even of dis- 
couragement, that all the tasks of humanity have 
not yet been accomplished. Young men of trained 
and virile powers could have no more dishearten- 
ing outlook than to believe that life presented no 
tasks, no problem, no new fields to explore and 
conquer. If all the work, all the achievements, 
had been finished by our predecessors, life would 
present a tame and unpromising monotony. It 
is not wholly unfortunate, then, that so much still 
remains to be accomplished. These tasks should 



112 COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

stimulate your holiest purposes, and your best en- 
deavours. I confidently declare to you, young 
ladies and gentlemen of this class, that the things 
which are open before you are bigger with possi- 
bilities than any who have gone before you have 
ever looked upon. The very greatness of the 
tasks achieved in the past only enhances the 
greatness of the things which are to follow. 

Christ's words were never so true to any dis- 
ciples, to any class, to any souls, as they are to 
you today — u Ye shall see greater things than 
these." But as the disciples of old, you can only 
accomplish these great things as you abide in 
Him and work through His strength. 

Your alma mater sends you forth with the 
prayer that you may keep so close to His side, 
and abide so constantly in His light and His love, 
that as the new and larger visions come to you, 
grace, wisdom, and strength may be given to 
grasp the fullest measure of their possibilities. 
Our love and our solicitude will follow you and 
stand round you in every crisis. 

With loyal hearts and courageous step, and 
with faces turned to the future, may you go forth 
equipped for the larger visions, and with the 
power to accomplish your full measure of service 
to humanity and to God. May His blessed bene- 
diction rest upon you and bring you victoriously 
through all life's tasks, its joys and its sorrows, 
into the fullness of His Everlasting Kingdom. 



God's Measure of Duty 



^We ye them to eat." Luke IX: 13 



1914 
(College of Liberal Arts) 



GOD'S MEASURE OF DUTY 

Text. — "Give ye them to eat." Luke ix : 13. 

/ T*HIS command of Jesus, the Master, to his 
■*" disciples is a key to God's measure of duty. 
It is bigger with meaning than the feeding of 
five thousand men. If it meant that only to the 
disciples who heard it, it means the feeding of 
the hundreds of millions to the men who have 
the spiritual understanding to hear the message 
the Master gives today, through the larger in- 
terpretation of these words. 

Everything that Jesus did seemed to be the 
planting of the seed, the laying of the corner-stone, 
the beginning of something which was to grow 
bigger and bigger throughout eternity. To the 
people who saw it, the feeding of the five thou- 
sand men in a wilderness place with the meagre 
resources of five loaves and two fishes was a great 
miracle. But in proportion, it was as the mus- 
tard seed to the great tree with its branches reach- 
ing to heaven. It was like the little leaven, 
leavening the whole lump, as compared with the 
greatness of the miracles which have been per- 
formed by Christianity since that day, and as com- 
pared with the great miracles which are laid upon 
humanity in the day in which we live. The com- 
mand seemed to the disciples who heard it im- 
possible of fulfillment. They did not know the 

(116) 



116 COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

hidden resources of their divine Master. They 
could not comprehend the breadth of His sym- 
pathies, the extent of His power, the rewards of 
labour, or the vision of faith. What appalled 
them, to Him was natural and necessary. 

It has taken the world two thousand years to 
comprehend the universal brotherhood which He 
taught. But it has not yet learned the full meas- 
ure of power, opportunity, or duty for a life that 
is linked with the Infinite. 

It is left for the best trained men and women 
of today, or, perchance, of the future, for the 
men and women most truly comprehending the 
great mission of life, and the infinite resources 
at our command, to demonstrate the deepest 
meaning of Christ's injunction, "Give ye them to 
eat." It is in keeping with this fact that we 
choose this text, and draw from it the theme — 
"God's measure of duty." 

When Jesus was giving to Peter his most sacred 
commission to serve, it was in the words, "Feed 
my sheep." When God sends a college-trained 
man or woman forth from college halls in the 
twentieth century, with the new ideals of social 
redemption burning in his soul, there is no word 
that can better convey God's measure of duty, 
than this humanly impossible command of Jesus, 
"Give ye them to eat.'" 

I wish to make very plain to you all, my 
friends, in this sermon, and particularly to the 



GOD'S MEASURE OF DUTY 117 

members of this senior class, two things: First, 
that there are resources available for you of which 
you have never dreamed, and concerning which 
in the biggest moments of your lives you have 
never been aware; and, second, that there is no 
worthy life that is not a life of ministry. 

I. We will consider first, "the unknown re- 
sources. " It is not a new thesis to declare that 
God has made provision for a sliding scale of 
ability in order that men may rise to occasions 
and meet emergencies. There is a method by 
which ability may come in upon a man as he 
goes forth to a given task. Even after an obli- 
gation has been incurred, step by step as the ex- 
igencies arise, new and enlarged power and facil- 
ity have crowned the efforts of men of vision and 
faith and courage. 

Such a progressive enduement of power is not 
unobserved in the natural laws with which we are 
familiar. Machines and tools which men make 
begin to fail as they begin to serve. The wear 
and decay of use is the characteristic of inanimate 
matter. But the human body gains power for 
exertion by exertion. Physical exercise, disci- 
pline, and drill give a power and develop re- 
sources unattainable by any other means. The 
body is able to endure and triumph today only 
because it endured and triumphed yesterday. 

It is therefore reasonable and proper for a 
man to assign himself a task which today he has 



118 COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

not the physical power to achieve, in the confident 
expectation that he can acquire unwonted strength 
by discipline and that when the emergency arises 
he will be able to meet it. 

By some hidden law of our being muscular 
strength and endurance are often supplied or 
created suddenly at the call of some great emer- 
gency. Under the stimulus of sudden danger or 
responsive to the call of humanity or of affliction, 
giant strength has often been shown by frail men, 
and even delicate and timid women. 

It is of the nature of courage to increase in the 
midst of perils. Under such sudden gifts of 
power timid souls have risen to the most heroic 
endeavour. No less than bodily powers are the 
powers of the mind unfolded and expanded while 
in action, and enabled to achieve new reaches of 
victory and to surmount obstacles hitherto deemed 
insurmountable. 

It is an old saying that "necessity is the mother 
of invention/' but it is only another way of say- 
ing that the mind can not be circumscribed. What 
is dark today is light tomorrow. Strike blindness 
to a Milton, and he dictates a Paradise Lost, 
Take away hearing from an Edison, yet he con- 
nects with speech distant people, and sings the 
song of a voice long silenced in death. Each 
triumph awakens the consciousness of the power 
for still another. 

But this law of the unknown resources is even 



GOD'S MEASURE OF DUTY U9 

more important to our life in its moral aspects 
than in its material and intellectual operations. I 
have drawn at length upon the physical and the 
intellectual resources which God has stored up for 
us in our personalities, and which he makes avail- 
able when needed, under definite and fixed con- 
ditions, that I may the more adequately illustrate, 
reveal, and analyze the moral and spiritual re- 
sources which God has put within the grasp of 
college-trained men and women. 

It often happens that education is taken as a 
matter of course. It is thought to be simply a 
necessary incident, falling between the birth and 
death of a human being. But I would have you 
realize that education is a part of the programme 
by which God makes available for you resources 
that are enlarging and enriching as life expands; 
resources that, though they are unknown, are yet 
available and are to become a part of conscious 
power, step by step, as the power is needed. But, 
most of all, that moral power is that for which 
all else exists. It is the asset of life by which 
all else is measured and weighed and interpreted. 
The truly educated soul, the one that not only 
knows science and literature and history, but that 
knows God and feels His illumination of life, 
that soul has at his command, as they are needed, 
the infinite resources which eternal wisdom and 
love pour in and upon life as its best and most 
holy asset. 



120 COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

This year has been notable in the history of 
this college as the year of the great religious re- 
vival, the year in which an unequaled number 
of students experienced the new birth and came 
into the enjoyment of a conscious and blessed 
religious faith. Many members of this college 
and some of the members of this class will look 
back to this year as their year of greatest spiritual 
victory and blessedness. We have stood upon 
the mountain tops of faith and hope. Vows of 
loyalty and devotion to God's service have been 
solemnly but joyfully made. Pledges for a life 
of service have been registered, in which the 
whole outlook of lives has been transformed. 

How buoyantly we espoused the Cause of the 
Kingdom, and enlisted for life in the warfare 
against sin and unrighteousness ! Who of you 
stopped to measure the spiritual resources of 
which that glad day was a prophecy? Who could 
have measured them if he had tried? 

No, my friends, God was calling you to a life 
bigger with possibilities than you could ever have 
known or thought. No illumination of life could 
have approached the real resources which that 
allegiance to the Divine Master made available 
for you. 

So long as life shall last, so long as new tasks 
are open to you, so long as victories and achieve- 
ments are still unwon, God's measureless re- 
sources will be unfolded upon your ever widening 



GOD'S MEASURE OF DUTY 121 

vision, even as the eyes of the servant of Elisha, 
when opened by Jehovah's power, saw that the 
"mountain was full of horses and chariots round 
about Elisha." I can not tell you what resources 
you will need, happy as I am to record this new 
day of your spiritual awakening. But I can con- 
fidently declare this to you; namely, that, as God 
bids you, u Give ye them to eat," He puts at your 
command all the resources of the universe as you 
shall need them for each day's work. 

Do you feel, like Isaiah, that your lips are un- 
cleansed, and that you dwell in the midst of a 
people of unclean lips? Then the live coal from 
off the altar is waiting to cleanse and purify and 
consecrate. Do you feel, like Moses, that you 
are slow of speech, and of a slow tongue, and, 
like him, say, "Who am I, that I should go unto 
Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the chil- 
dren of Israel out of Egypt?" Then hear Je- 
hovah saying unto you, "Go, and I will be with 
thy mouth and teach thee what thou shalt speak," 
and that other promise still more blessed, "Cer- 
tainly / will be with thee." 

"Beloved, now are we the children of God, and 
it is not yet made manifest what we shall be. 
We know that if He shall be manifested, we 
shall be like Him, for we shall see Him even as 
He is, and every one that hath this hope set on 
Him purifieth himself, even as He is pure." 

Power to do and to be, because God is with 



122 COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

us, because we are growing into His likeness and 
into His image! Can I hold up before you 
loftier visions of the unrealized resources which 
are waiting to be lavishly given to every humblest 
child of God? Speech is powerless. Language 
is dumb to enumerate the riches of grace in Christ 
Jesus to every one that believeth. 

Do you wonder then that Jesus could speak of 
the impossible to the disciples and that in obe- 
dience to that command they could go forth to 
achieve the impossible? "Give ye them to eat," 
is God's command to college men and women, 
with the five loaves and two fishes of spiritual 
values which we have been able to make our own 
in these brief years of college life. But these 
loaves and fishes of ours today, so meagre and 
small as they seem to us, are but the pledge of 
the infinite storehouse of the Master upon which 
we can draw to feed His multitude. 

II. The second corollary of this text is in 
respect to service ; namely, that there is no worthy 
life that is not a life of ministry. "Give ye 
them to eat" implies both the need for service 
and the duty to render the service. There are 
the hungry and dependent to be fed, and the duty 
is laid on all others to supply that want. 

God requires a service that is a ministry to 
men. "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one 
of the least of these, ye have done it unto Me" 
was Jesus's definition of service to Himself. 



GOD'S MEASURE OF DUTY 123 

Any calling, profession, or occupation which 
does not take these facts of service into consider- 
ation is unwisely chosen. No man has a right 
to plan his life-work or select his vocation regard- 
less of his obligation to serve his fellows. 

This service is not a matter of charity. Jesus 
was not requiring charity of the disciples who fed 
the multitude. He was furnishing the principal 
resources Himself, but He was demanding of 
them interest and labour. He was demanding 
love, which is the richest element of personality 
a man has to enjoy or to bestow. 

Education is commonly looked upon in one of 
either of two aspects. It is thought to be a means 
for securing a living more advantageously — for 
increasing one's earning power, and as a com- 
mercial asset — or it is thought to be a refine- 
ment, a polish, an external adornment. 

Neither of these definitions satisfies the re- 
quirement which Jesus lays on life in His meas- 
ure of duty. To be sure, men can not give 
money if they possess none and can acquire none. 
Putting service on the lowest possible plane, how- 
ever; namely, that of giving money, few people 
are prohibited from all service. Even in this, 
there are unknown resources that are discovered 
as need arises. 

But the most effective hindrance to service is 
not the want of funds, but the want of disposi- 
tion. Education which conforms to God's meas- 



124 COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

ure of duty must include the culture of the dis- 
position. A truly educated man or woman is 
one whose outlook on life is neither commercial 
nor aesthetic, predominantly; but one in whom 
there is a trained passion for service, one who is 
eager to feed the hungry, whose heart leaps at 
the possibility of being a blessing to others; one 
who would despise a calling or occupation which 
does not offer the opportunity and the rewards 
of service. 

Fortunately, any honourable calling furnishes 
such opportunity if only the disposition be pres- 
ent. More and more our complex civilization 
increases mutual relationship, cooperation, and 
interdependence. The isolation of individualism 
is passing away. "No man liveth unto himself' 
is more necessarily true today than ever before. 
But with all this complexity, if the spirit of serv- 
ice be wanting, we have simply added confusion 
rather than adjustment and harmony. 

It is the ever increasing marvel of the teach- 
ings of Jesus that the more society and civiliza- 
tion advance, the more timely and apropos are 
the precepts and ideals which He advocated. 
Foremost among these is His conception of serv- 
ice. "He that would be greatest among you, 
let him be the servant of all" was never so appli- 
cable and so rentlessly true as it is today. The 
greater the advantage of an honourable ancestry 
and family traditions, the greater the inheritance 



GOD'S MEASURE OF DUTY 125 

of wealth a man may have; the more dismal and 
complete is his failure if he be devoid of the spirit 
of service. 

Much as it would rejoice my heart to see any 
one of you choose the calling of the Gospel min- 
istry or a mission-field or Christian Association 
work or some other distinctively religious and so- 
cial-service activity, nevertheless I am profoundly 
convinced that you may make any other legiti- 
mate calling or activity a service-activity, a la- 
bour of love, a ministry. It is the spirit which 
motivates the activity, that determines its meas- 
ure of ministry. 

Some of the greatest unsolved problems that 
now confront us as a civilization are in the realms 
of industry, economics, and government. They 
are not in the field of charity, as we commonly 
use that term, but they are in the sphere of love 
and of brotherhood. They involve a widening 
of the equal opportunity of men of all classes 
and conditions, the elimination of artificial bar- 
riers to competence, intelligence, and participation 
in the refinements and spiritual values of life. 

Once grasp this truth and become fired with 
loftiness and the glory of it, and you may con- 
secrate any vocation or profession, worthy of the 
name, to the holy ends of a ministry. Industry, 
trade, or politics may be made as truly God's call- 
ing to service as the pastorate or medicine or 
teaching. Into whatever activity one's talents, 



126 COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

tastes, opportunities, or duties may bid him en- 
ter, there he may find a consecrated task, a mis- 
sion field, a multitude to feed. 

There is not one of you to whom God is not 
saying, "Give ye them to eat"; "Feed my sheep"; 
"Ye are your brother's keeper." 

Your education, my young friends of the senior 
class, emphasizes and intensifies that call, while 
it multiplies a thousandfold the resources with 
which you can obey the call. Your alma mater 
believes that you will give a good account of 
yourselves in this great life-mission to which you 
are called. 

We congratulate you on the choices and 
achievements you have made. It is a brave and 
courageous attainment to put the best years of 
your lives into training. But with all this and 
the further graduate training that we hope will 
come to many of you, you will need constantly 
to see the resources which come only from the 
God who calls you to the task. 

Our love and our prayers will follow in all 
the walks of life to which you go. We trust 
that you will cherish, in affectionate regard, your 
alma mater, but most of all we pray that the 
Heavenly Father may give you richly His bless- 
ing, His joy, and His infinite resources; while, 
with consecrated service, you feed the multitude 
to whom we send you forth as ministers and 
benefactors. 



The Influence of Ideals Upon 
Character 



"Where there is no vision the people perish." 
Proverbs xxix: 18 



1916 
(College of Liberal Arts) 



INFLUENCE OF IDEALS UPON 
CHARACTER 

Text. — "Where there is no vision the people perish." 
Proverbs xxix : 18. 

TF there were no proof of the truth of this pro- 
■*■ verb in all the centuries since it was uttered, 
this present world war would amply prove its 
truth.* With all that has been said, and that 
may yet be said of the cause of the war or the 
lack of cause, it is all comprehended, in the last 
anaylsis, in the want of 'Vision" on a gigantic 
scale ; and the result is the most stupendous organ- 
ization for the sole purpose of causing the peo- 
ple to perish, ever yet known to humanity. 

A recent writer, speaking in a popular vein, 
has said: "Telling the people why will be gov- 
erning them." "Letting the crowd be good," 
he says, "all turns, in the long run, upon touching 

the imagination of crowds The coming 

of the kingdom of heaven is going to be the com- 
ing of a new piety and of new kinds of saints 
— saints who can attract attention, saints who can 

make crowds think what they really want 

Goodness is the one great adventure of the world, 
the huge daily passionate moral experiment of 
the human heart." 

But to succeed in this great adventure, men 

♦The reader should bear in mind that the great World 
War was in progress when this sermon was delivered. 
(129) 



130 COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

must see why, have vision, know truth in its re- 
lations. "Where there is no vision, the people 
perish." 

Idealism is vision. Its priceless reward is in 
its power to keep the people from perishing. 
Idealism is more than vision; it is a sanctified 
vision. It implies knowledge and disciplined 
discrimination, but, in addition, faith and outlook. 

It is because of these facts that the theme, 
"The Influence of Ideals upon Character" is ap- 
propriate for our study on a baccalaureate occa- 
sion like this. 

Ideas and ideals have ever been, since the be- 
ginning of the race, the chief instruments Iby 
which man has modified his environment and de- 
termined his adjustments to his fellowmen. 

Human instincts, creative imagination, and 
constructive reasoning, all unite to create for us 
these ideals, without which life degenerates to a 
passive mechanical routine, to a prosaic deter- 
minism, or to a coarse materialistic interpreta- 
tion of life that is without the stimulus of faith 
or the uplift of vision. 

History is replete with illustrations showing 
the influence of ideals upon character. The 
Greek ideal of a perfect human body was a de- 
termining factor in the Greek civilization. Recre- 
ations and amusements were all planned and exe- 
cuted with the one purpose of the development 
of the perfect physical body. Games, races, and 



INFLUENCE OF IDEALS UPON CHARACTER 131 

tournaments, though religious rites, fostered this 
ideal. Industry and vocations were subservient 
to this one purpose. Greek art, which has made 
the Greek civilization illustrious, was founded 
upon the aesthetics of the symmetrical human 
form. Sculpture was consecrated to this ideal. 
Painting and architecture cherished it. 

The drama, with the open-air theatre, drew 
its materials from the human aspirations for the 
perfection of physical qualities and moral qualities 
based upon the physical. In the literature of 
the Greeks, physical prowess is constantly held up 
to emulation and praise. 

Even the fine linguistic distinctions of the 
Greek language, — the finest and most aesthetic of 
any language in the world, — seem to have been 
conceived and polished into form in the same 
spirit and with the same ideals that produced 
the art and the drama, and that made the Greek 
body the model of excellence in all that pertains 
to beauty, symmetry, and proportion. 

Roman character is no less the product of 
ideals, than is the Greek. But the ideals are as 
different as the difference in character. Not the 
clean-limbed athlete was the ideal, but the dom- 
inant will. Hence the development of Roman 
militarism and Roman law. The discipline and 
training of armies was a process by which the 
Caesars and the Scipios could enforce their wills 
and buttress their laws. Out of this ideal of 



132 COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

the dominating will, grew both the Imperial 
Rome, and the luxuriant, degenerate, decadent, 
Pompeii. Here literature and language lost the 
refinements of the Greeks and vacillated between 
triumphal entries and degenerate debauches. 

The ideals of the barbarians who invaded the 
classic civilization from the north and introduced 
the characteristics of the Middle Ages left 
Europe, after a thousand years, to be reawak- 
ened by a Renaissance of learning and art re- 
discovered and introduced from the long buried 
remnants of past civilizations. The Teutonic 
barbarism of the Middle Ages, satiate with icono- 
clasm, exulted in the devastation of art and lit- 
erature. It burned libraries, threw down tem- 
ples, and mutilated the choicest art the world has 
ever seen. 

One can not read of the wanton destruction 
of the Rheims Cathedral in the present war, with- 
out connecting this vandalism with that of the in- 
glorious progenitors of the same race who sacked 
Rome fifteen centuries ago,^nd laid in ruins the 
accumulated art and architecture of the preced- 
ing centuries. 

The history of religion also furnishes abun- 
dant illustrations of the influence of ideals upon 
character. Pagan religions made their devotees 
brave warriors, cruel, heartless, lustful pagans, 
or fanatics, according to the ideals which men 



INFLUENCE OF IDEALS UPON CHARACTER 133 

had of the gods whom they worshipped and sacri- 
ficed to. 

The coming of Christianity into the midst of 
paganism introduced new ideals. The Christ 
spirit was one of humility and service. He cared 
for the lowly and the weak. He ministered to 
the suffering and the sorrowing. He taught that 
"A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of 
the things which he possesseth." 

The application of His teachings by the early 
disciples led to a socialistic organization of the 
primitive church; and that ideal, so prevalent in 
the first century of the Christian era, still per- 
sists in modified forms in monasticism and other 
isolated movements in Christianity. 

But the rise of the Roman hierarchy in the 
early Middle Ages, substituted an altered ideal 
for the simple leadership of Him "who came not 
to be ministered unto, but to minister." Lead- 
ership in religion became autocratic, and aspired 
to world rulership and political and material 
power. The ideal of the exalted Christ on the 
cross was exchanged for the exalted bishop on a 
throne. This new ideal changed the church, as 
well as its leadership, to a pyramidal organiza- 
tion of power, where those higher up preyed 
upon the weak, and extorted money for indul- 
gences, or for immunity from punishment for the 
sins, due to the weakness of the flesh. 

After a thousand years of following the per- 



134 COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

verted Ideal, a new modification of the ideal set 
in. It was the Reformation under the leader- 
ship of Luther, Zwingli, and others. It was a 
reaction from the hierarchy in religion to the 
individualism which brooks no dictation and no 
intercession. For more than four hundred years 
that ideal of individualism — personal responsibil- 
ity to God — personal right to interpret Scripture, 
and personal salvation, independent of priest or 
intercessors, dominated Christian thinking. Its 
result has been the breaking up of Christianity 
into many scores of denominations and sects, each 
free to go its own way in dividing and subdivid- 
ing, until, when followed to its logical conclusion, 
each man is a law unto himself. 

Our modern life at the close of the nineteenth 
century found this ideal of individualism bearing 
its extreme fruit, influenced by a contemporary 
materialistic ideal. If the individual is indepen- 
dent in religion, why not in economics and in 
industry? If he owes no man anything in reli- 
gion, why should he not be economically indepen- 
dent; and, therefore, at liberty to acquire what 
wealth he can by what means he can, and use it 
as he pleases? 

But the stage of individualism soon passed in 
industry; for big business first fostered, and then 
compelled, combination and concentration until 
the world has awakened to the fact that no man 
or combination of men can do business with a 



INFLUENCE OF IDEALS UPON CHARACTER 135 

high hand independently of the rest of mankind. 
Gradually a new ideal is forming, looking toward 
the brotherhood which Jesus saw. But in its new 
form, it has an economic motive, which is added 
to the simple impulse of brotherly affection. The 
push and pull of affection has for its most pow« 
erful ally in moral uplift the economic ideal of 
justice, equity, and righteousness. Thus, with 
the shifting of the ideal, is witnessed the shift in 
emphasis on character, religion, economics, and 
social fraternalism. 

Before turning from this vast array of illus- 
trative material, I must call your attention to 
the ideals of literature and their influence on char- 
acter. Literature is the expression in letters of 
the cooperating intellectual and spiritual in man. 
Pure intellectual thought alone does not consti- 
tute literature. Euclid's Elements, Newton's 
Principia, Spinoza's Ethica, and Kant's Critique 
of Pure Reason represent the intellectual 
divorced from the spiritual. They fail to meas- 
ure up to our ideal of literature because of the 
absence of spiritual elements. 

The spiritual enters the domain of the emo- 
tional. It embraces the susceptible, the impres- 
sionable, the sympathetic, the intuitive. The 
spiritual is the unfolding of that mysterious some- 
thing in the constitution of man, by and through 
which he holds relationship with the essential 



136 COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

spirit of things, as opposed to the phenomenal 
of which the sense takes cognizance. 

The relative merit and importance of different 
periods of literature are determined by the differ- 
ent degrees of spirituality which these periods ex- 
hibit. This is only to say that the degree of vision 
or idealism determines its power to stimulate and 
regenerate life. It determines its essential, its 
eternal, element, its transforming power. The 
unconscious might in the verse of Chaucer and 
Spenser raised them above the darkness and 
desolation of the wars and conflicts of early Eng- 
lish life, which they illuminate with passion and 
power. They planted the seed of spiritual power 
and idealism which grew to flower in the Renais- 
sance and the Elizabethan literature. 

The baptism of blood and fire through which 
England passed at the Reformation gave religion 
a new birth. The mighty heart of the people, 
purged from the dross in the crucible of con- 
flict, came forth with a new vision. New ideals 
were to enlighten and exalt men's minds as they 
subsequently shone forth in Shakespeare, Milton, 
Bacon, Ben Jonson, and many others. 

These writers created a literature embodying 
the high ideals which have been the powerful 
factors in shaping the character of the English 
speaking race. They are reiterated and expanded 
in the immortal writings of Scott, Wordsworth, 



INFLUENCE OF IDEALS UPON CHARACTER 137 

Coleridge, Byron, Keats, Shelley, Tennyson, and 
Browning. 

The spiritual ideals in literature brought forth 
in the eighteenth century a great religious revival, 
in which the Wesleys and Whitefield were lead- 
ers, and which produced William Cowper as its 
poetical mouthpiece. This again is only another 
instance of the vision which saves the people from 
perishing. 

In our own American literature, the ideals of 
the transcendentalists have been a regenerating 
force in letters, philosophy, science, and religion. 
When George Ripley resigned his parish to de- 
vote himself to literature, he had a vision that 
reached beyond the boundaries of his parish, and 
sought to save men who could not hear his Sun- 
day sermons. He said to his people : 

"There is a class of persons who desire a reform in the 
prevailing philosophy of the day. They believe in an 
order of truths which transcend the sphere of the exter- 
nal senses. They maintain that the truth of religion 
does not depend on tradition nor historical facts but has 
an unerring witness in the soul. There is a light, they 
believe, which enlighteneth every man that cometh into 
the world." 

"There is a faculty in all, even the most obscure, the 
most degraded, to perceive spiritual truth when distinctly 
presented. They believe that the ultimate appeal, on all 
moral questions, is not to a jury of scholars, a hierarchy 
of divines, or the prescriptions of a creed, but to the 
common sense of the human race. These views I have 
adopted, and if my discourses and lectures have in any 
instance displayed the vitality of truth, impressed on a 
single heart a genuine sense of religion, disclosed to you 
a new prospect of the resources of your own nature, 
made you feel more deeply your responsibility to God, 



138 COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

cheered you in the sublime hope of immortality, and 
convinced your reason of the reality and worth of the 
Christian revelation, it is because my mind has been 
trained in the principles of Transcendental philosophy." 

Out of ideals such as these came the writings 
of George Ripley, Ralph Waldo Emerson, 
William Ellery Channing, Henry D. Thoreau, 
and Nathaniel Hawthorne. By them the 
dark blood-stained soil of Puritanism was 
broken up and a new verdure appeared. 
From this newly-stirred soil, plants with stainless 
blossoms and exquisite odour arose. The stern 
austere philosophy and theology, where persecu- 
tion and bigotry had flourished, gave place to the 
softer ideals of spiritual grace and love. So 
long as beauty and fragrance give charm and 
value to life, so long will these fair blossoms of 
love shed a beneficent saving power over the 
people who before were perishing in the cold 
cruel soil of mediaeval theology, New England 
"Blue Laws", and Puritan persecution. 

Surely, enough has now been said to illustrate 
the fact that character develops around certain 
"psychic dominants. " These "psychic domin- 
ants" represent vision or the want of vision. 
Where there is no vision, degeneracy, decay, and 
death are inevitable. Where there is vision, 
there is growth, progress, life. 

This saving vision, however, is the vision of 
trained minds. It is the educated men and 
women who are to furnish the saving "psychic 



INFLUENCE OF IDEALS UPON CHARACTER 139 

dominants. " College men and women must fur- 
nish the world the ideals by which our civiliza- 
tion must be saved from its grossness, its mate- 
rialism, its cruelty, its love of display, its irrev- 
erence. 

It is the mission of educational training, above 
all, to enkindle in young souls these illuminations 
which will guide benighted humanity into paths 
of safety. 

You who are graduating from this school are 
to become the spiritual conservators of those 
ideals which point to new values in human life 
and history. Christian homes have planted in 
your hearts the germs of these ideals. Through 
examples, and by parables and precept, they have 
been taught you in the public school, and rein- 
forced by the Christian preaching by which your 
whole lives have been surrounded. Now you 
have been the beneficiaries of the large educa- 
tional resources of a Christian college. 

Humanitarian science and philosophy have en- 
riched your perspective, and sharpened your im- 
agination to perfect the vision by which you are 
to save yourselves and the people from perish- 
ing; by which you are to determine the character 
of yourselves, and, to an important extent, of 
your fellowmen. 

Effective beliefs, raised to the power of vision, 
are the only means by which men are to be saved, 
and society saved. In the great adventure of 



140 COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

the world, of which I have spoken; viz,, good- 
ness, — the passionate moral experiment of the hu- 
man heart, — there is just one means by which to 
bridge the gulf between the vicious and the good. 
That means is the religion of love expressing 
itself in service. 

Education strives to bridge the gulf between 
the ignorant and the educated. Economics 
would bridge the gulf between the rich and the 
poor. But religious and moral ideals must 
bridge the gulf between the vicious and the good. 
Moral ideals are our most precious spiritual pos- 
session, because these ideals are the dynamics of 
character-building and the arc-lights of salvation. 

My dear young people of this senior class, 
your measure of moral ideals and of spiritual 
vision is your measure of all true success. We 
have sought to acquaint you with the ideals by 
which we are inspired and guided. We have 
sought to place your feet upon the solid ground 
on the foot-hills of truth and inspire you to 
climb toward the summits. 

Because ideals give character, and vision 
saves, we pray that you may have both ideals and 
vision in large measure. And that you may be 
instruments in God's hands for the saving of the 
people, through the vision which you possess. 

Follow the leading of your highest light. Be 
true to it, and to God who gives it. Then lift 
the torch of that light up to the perishing world. 



INFLUENCE OF IDEALS UPON CHARACTER 141 

In patience and love and faith hold aloft your 
best ideals that ail men may share the light both 
of your culture and your moral and spiritual 
vision. 

If you do this, your alma mater's best hope 
and faith in you will be realized, and God the 
Father will crown your lives and your labour 
with His infinite love and His eternal salvation. 

One of your professors has been wont occa- 
sionally to request his students to read Professor 
Alphonso Smith's little book, What Can Liter- 
ature Do For Mef You who have read it 
know that its charm is in the vision which it 
holds up before you. You are pointed to the 
fact that the poet and scientist; the toiler, the 
reformer, and the statesman are all possible be- 
cause of vision, and only because of vision. 
"You may find America's Creed of Idealism," he 
says, "written in Holmes' Chambered Nautilus, 
in Hawthorne's Great Stone Face, and in Long- 
fellow's Excelsior. }> Read them and let your 
souls expand with them on the wings of light to 
that higher vision to which I point you tonight, 
in this great moment of your lives — the vision 
in the creed of Jesus Christ emblazoned immor- 
tal, in the Sermon on the Mount. 

In the light of that vision I bid you go forth 
to be and to do and to dare, and may the God of 
love and peace go with you. 



The Good Fight of Faith 



"Fight the good fight of faith." i Tim. vi: 12 



1917 
(Agricultural School) 



THE GOOD FIGHT OF FAITH 

Text. — "Fight the good fight of faith." i Timothy 
vi : 12. 

"HV3R nearly three years, the world war has been 
**■ the topic uppermost in every mind. Now 
that the United States has been drawn into the 
maelstrom, your graduation is in the midst of 
the mobilization of men and the organization 
and training of armies and navies. A number 
of the men of your class have joined the colors 
and are tonight on the training grounds for mil- 
itary or naval service. Others are doing agri- 
cultural cadet service. Their absence forces 
home to us the stern fact that a fight is on in 
which every one of us must bear a part. 

Some of your grandparents were engaged in 
a gigantic national struggle testing democracy a 
little more than half a century ago. The peace- 
ful pursuits of the half century since that con- 
flict have had little to disturb their order and 
progress. The Spanish War of nearly twenty 
years ago seems now to have left but a ripple 
on the peaceful surface of history. 

The development of financial resources and 
the swift rise of political, social, and educational 
institutions have occupied the generation which 
has preceded you. But today the world vibrates 
to the tramp of armies and the roar of cannon. 

(145) 



146 COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

You are to be graduated from the quiet intellec- 
tual pursuits of your student life, some of your 
number to march as patriots to the battle's front, 
and all of you to breathe the hot breath of war. 

Nothing therefore could be a more appropri- 
ate theme for such a baccalaureate occasion as 
this, than the theme, The Good Fight of Faith. 
If there is a bad fight, a wrong fight, a cruel and 
inhuman fight, a selfish and tyrannical fight, there 
is also a just fight, a right fight, a patriotic fight, 
a brave fight, a confident fight, a good fight; and 
it is to such a fight that we are called by the ex- 
hortation of the text, "Fight the good fight of 
faith." 

Leaving the characteristic of faith as a requi- 
site for a good fight, to be discussed later in this 
study, I wish to present first, some of the other 
evident requisites of the good fight. 

Jesus said, "I came not to send peace on earth, 
but a sword." He came to set up standards of 
justice and equity in the midst of injustice, hu- 
man slavery, and religious tyranny. He did not 
expect injustice, selfish oppression, and slavery 
to slink away and hide themselves without a fight. 
He did not expect religious bigotry, pharisaism 
and intolerance to hoist a white flag and sur- 
render without a fight. But he was ready to be- 
gin the fight and to make whatever sacrifice it 
might require. He proved that willingness by 
every possible protest against wrong, and finally 



THE GOOD FIGHT OF FAITH 147 

by yielding his body as a sacrifice on the cross. 

In this battle for righteousness, Jesus set the 
standard for a good fight. If we can analyze 
and catalogue the characteristics of His fight, we 
can know what the requisites are of a good fight 
for ourselves. There are so many of these dis- 
tinguishing features in Jesus's fight that we can 
not dwell at length upon many of them or even 
mention them all. 

I. Among the outstanding ones, it seems to 
me that the first is freedom. He said, "Ye shall 
know the truth and the truth shall make you 
free." Every fibre of his nature throbbed with 
the pulse-beat of freedom. Every thread of his 
intellectual and spiritual fabric vibrated with the 
resistless demand for freedom. Tyranny, op- 
pression, slavery, overlordship, autocracy, all, 
were the foes for which He unsheathed His 
sword and sounded the challenge of battle. 

For nearly two thousand years the battle has 
waged. The Christian Church, under its great 
Captain has made conquest after conquest, in the 
name of justice, liberty, freedom. The mile- 
stones of history stand on the battle grounds of 
these great conquests. The Crusades, the Ren- 
aissance, the Reformation, the American Revo- 
lution, the Emancipation of the American 
Slave. All these achievements have been the con- 
quests of religion, and they have been won in 
the sternest of wars. But the westward move- 



148 COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

ment of conquest in the fight for freedom has 
left some buried seeds of autocracy to germinate 
in the overgrown trenches of its ancient warfare. 
In the land where Martin Luther struck his gi- 
gantic blows for spiritual freedom, where the bea- 
con fires of the Reformation were first kindled; 
in that land where spiritual fervor and restless 
upward longing fanned into flame the protests 
against spiritual slavery that were voiced by John 
Huss, Reuchlin, Ulrich Von Hutton, and Me- 
lancthon, leaders of German piety and learning; 
in that same land, after two centuries, William 
Frederick and his son Frederick the Great, 
planted the tap root of autocratic militarism deep 
in the heart of the German people. It was nur- 
tured in the "blood and iron" of Bismark. It 
has resisted all the challenges of democracy; and 
survived above the philosophy, art, music, and 
religion of Germany. Now it has burst into 
the volcanic eruption of William Hohenzollern. 
As old Vesuvius belched forth fire and ashes, 
and buried Pompeii in the days of her wealth and 
art and peace and luxury; so this Prussian autoc- 
racy which first overlaid Germany, is now belch- 
ing forth its liquid flame of withering, destruc- 
tive fire upon the whole world. In neighbour- 
ing lands where once Christian peoples dwelt, 
plied their peaceful industries, and cherished 
their art treasures, their schools, their churches, 
and their cathedrals, now stand the pitiful ghosts 



THE GOOD FIGHT OF FAITH 149 

of their once beautiful and historic cities; all be- 
cause treaties and sacred contracts are but 
"scraps of paper" when tyranny wishes to ride 
rough shod over human rights and freedom, and 
thereby accomplish for its own selfish purpose, 
the enslavement of the rest of the world. 

The democracies of Europe that are the fruit- 
age of the best achievement for liberty, which 
two thousand years of struggle have given to 
Europe, are being rocked to their very founda- 
tions, and their future existence is threatened by 
this Titanic assault against freedom. And on 
the seas, the peaceful highways of the world, 
this Prussian autocracy has launched its death 
dealing blows against neutral trades and com- 
merce; and has defied law, humanity, and mercy, 
in the belief or in the practice that "Might makes 
right." 

Against such assaults upon freedom, democ- 
racy, justice, and humanity, we as a free and dem- 
ocratic people have been summoned to make our 
protest. That protest has been patiently and 
repeatedly made in courteous argument, respect- 
ful petition, appeal, and warning. Month by 
month, and year by year, the continued assaults 
demonstrated that the Imperial German Empire 
has no conscience that hearkens to the claims of 
justice and international law. She has no scru- 
ples to trample upon the rights and sacred her- 
itage of the weak and defenceless. She has na 



150 COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

pity touched by the fountains of mercy to spare 
helpless women and children from a cruelty and 
inhuman torture, formerly ascribed only to bar- 
barous and infuriated savages. She has no chiv- 
alry or honour to respect the chastity of unpro- 
tected virtue. 

When protests and notes and warnings had ex- 
hausted years and witnessed only the increase of 
tragedy, the scientific incubation of crime, and 
the noisy declaration of immunity from honour 
or responsibility, this great nation laid its wealth, 
its most cherished institutions and the pride of 
its citizenship upon the altar of freedom in a 
proclamation recognizing a state of war with 
Imperial Germany. 

In this act she entered the sisterhood of the 
Allies in the most desperate light ever maintained 
for the principles of freedom, for which Jesus the 
great Master laid down his life. In this fight 
she stands beside Him who said, "I came not to 
send peace but a sword," when that sword was to 
liberate the oppressed and to give freedom to 
the captive. In this, fight she follows the com- 
mand of the great apostle who said: "Fight the 
good fight of faith." 

II. A second characteristic of the good fight 
is that it shall be with love. "Love your ene- 
mies," was our Lord's command. Of Him it 
could be said he had no enemy whom he did 
not love. 



THE GOOD FIGHT OF FAITH 151 

I would not fill your hearts with hate. I 
would not do injustice to that other Germany 
that has won the admiration and esteem of hu- 
manity, — that great body of Germans, brave, obe- 
dient, and subject citizens, who in times of peace 
have been leaders in science and philosophy, art, 
music, and religion. Many of them have longed 
for the same freedom from autocracy which we 
enjoy, and but for the accident of the Hohen- 
zollerns they might have had it. For these schol- 
ars and thinkers and humble peasants, we have 
the greatest sympathy and fraternal love; and 
we would make this good fight liberate them from 
the political slavery in which they are enthralled. 
This war will not be in the fullest measure suc- 
cessfully ended, until that result is accomplished. 

Thousands of the young men who are graduat- 
ing this year from American colleges, are now in 
training to do their bit in this great fight. They 
will be comrades with your classmates who have 
already volunteered or may hereafter do so. And 
all these brave, choice, college men will be com- 
rades of all the thousands or millions of brave 
boys who may be recruited for this good fight 
before the war is over. 

We have been accustomed to attach special 
honour to a volunteer. I would not in the least 
detract any meed of praise from such pure pa- 
triotism as every volunteer has shown, but I am 
convinced that, on the whole, for the just distri- 



152 COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

bution of the burden, and the wise selection of 
talent where it can render its best service for pa- 
triotism, the selective conscription is the sanest, 
most democratic, and most effective method of 
recognizing universal obligation for service. 

College men are the flower of the nation's 
youth. They are the most vigorous and enthu- 
siastic minds among all our people. Likewise 
they are the freest from bitterness, malice, and 
revenge. They are brave and true and ready. 
Of course they will volunteer in mass for any 
patriotic task, or hazard, if they are urged, or 
even permitted, to do so. But the wisest and 
sanest minds in national leadership know that a 
wholesale sacrifice of youth without reference to 
its greatest efficiency, is most disastrous, most im- 
provident, most reckless of the future of democ- 
racy. 

The greatest sacrifice that England and France 
have made in the war is not of money or ships 
or even of life. But it is of college men who 
went, in the first rush of enthusiasm, to the 
trenches, when they were needed and fitted to 
be trained as officers, engineers, and experts in 
countless fields that have suffered for the want 
of such experts. The selective draft may seem 
to hit hard here and there, and if it does, we 
will be brave enough to meet it. But on the 
whole it will select and distribute and equalize 
the burden better than any other method. Most 



THE GOOD FIGHT OF FAITH 153 

of all it will conserve the intellect and training of 
the country to be used where they can strike the 
neaviest blows for freedom and democracy. The 
selective draft leaves all young men under twenty- 
one years of age free to continue their education. 

It is not the policy of the government to dis- 
turb the processes of the education of the youth 
more than is absolutely necessary. The cessa- 
tion of one year's full quota of educated men at 
our colleges and universities would be one whole 
year lost in the onward march of progress. The 
good fight of faith looks to the future and seeks 
to be equipped for whatever of opportunity the 
future may bring to us. 

The ranks of our schools must be kept filled- 
Learning must continue to receive its full 
annual share of our thought and money and of 
our youth. College graduates, professors, and 
students, alike, must not cease to assist in keeping 
alive the fountains of knowledge, science, liter- 
ature, and art. They must do their bit in keeping 
the youth of the land in constant and increasing 
measure at these sources of knowledge and train- 
ing. Though not so sensational as army service, 
or possibly as agriculture and manufacture, it is 
just as patriotic and as honourable to be supply- 
ing leadership, training, and culture for the tasks 
of tomorrow. 

Such a contest as this war is not a momentary 
struggle. It is not a burst of enthusiasm. It is 



154 COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

the ground swell of freedom and democracy for 
the world as against tyranny and autocracy. This 
war will not only determine whether democracy 
can survive in Europe; it will determine whether 
it can survive in America ; whether it is of an en- 
during stuff, or whether it is evanescent and tem- 
porary. Providence has given it to this genera- 
tion, and perchance to this the greatest of democ- 
racies, to cast the die that shall record, for all 
the future, the fate of democracy. 

But I would not have you believe that this 
fight is limited to the battle field or to the men 
in khaki. This is a fight, not of armies but of 
whole nations. It is as much an economic con- 
flict as it is military. The world's food supply 
is perhaps the most important of the factors 
that will decide the fate of the world in this grim 
and terrible conflict. Armies, navies, seamen, 
munition-workers, manufacturers, civilians, — all 
must have food. The great hospitals and prison 
camps must all have food. The bulk of that food 
supply — all of it that, as a surplus, may be trans- 
ported from place to place, to meet emergencies; 
this country must supply. The ships to carry it 
we must supply. Ministries of mercy we must 
supply. Economies, thrift, industry, and sav- 
ings are as essential in this fight as are banks and 
railroads and ships. Every American must do 
his bit for America and for the world.* 



♦This sermon was delivered in the midst of the activities 
of the World War. 



THE GOOD FIGHT OF FAITH 155 

ill. It is here, in the universality of unselfish- 
ness, that it seems to me this "good fight" meas- 
ures up to another of the foundation principles 
of the great Teacher: viz., unselfish service. "I 
came not to be ministered unto but to minister," 
was a basic principle in His character and teach- 
ing. 

The cause for which America and our Allies 
are fighting has not a single selfish element in it, 
so far as I can see. In this trio of characteris- 
tics of the u good fight"; viz., for freedom, for 
love, and for service, all that is best in the human 
soul inheres. These qualities are to character- 
ize all the forward steps of civilization. With- 
out them the world will be atrophied, paralyzed, 
dead. 

If the applications which I have made of the 
requisites for the "good fight" seem to you to be 
national, rather than personal, I beg you to note 
that no great national characteristics can domi- 
nate a government or a people that are not found 
first and primarily in its individual citizens. Also 
a nation can not make the good fight of faith un- 
less its citizens personally and individually make 
that good fight. Furthermore, if its people are 
to make it, the college men and women, the lead- 
ers of the people, must make it. You are to be 
among these leaders. Your estimates of the sig- 
nificance of the fight and of the characteristics of 
the fight will largely determine it for your f el- 



156 COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

lows. It is for these reasons that your vision 
should be clear, your motives high, your decisions 
rational, and your nerves calm. 

IV. A fourth element in the good fight, and 
one which I have preferred to discuss last, be- 
cause of its importance and its optimistic uplift, 
is the element of faith. The good fight must 
be a fight of faith. To fight this good fight a 
man must believe in his cause. He must believe 
in his comrades, in the triumph of truth and right, 
and in the overruling Providence of God. It is 
faith that sings the song of hope in the heart 
when all the world looks dark. It is faith that 
nerves the hand and steadies the brain. It is 
faith that makes service worth while, that makes 
love worth while, particularly the love of an en- 
emy. It is faith that makes freedom worth while, 
that makes it worth the fight, worth the price. 
"Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the 
evidence of things not seen." 

World Peace is the thing devoutly hoped for 
but as yet not seen. Alfred University is an advo- 
cate of Peace. We have our World's Peace Prize 
Contests. We hope and pray for World Peace. 
But now in this maelstrom of war, we can only 
help answer our prayers and exercise our faith 
by the united effort of our whole people utterly to 
discredit and annihilate Prussian Militarism, and 
so to make it impossible for the recurrence of 
such a catastrophe. Now that we, the advocates 



THE GOOD FIGHT OF FAITH 157 

of peace, have to fight, we will fight for a peace 
that will last. 

It is by faith that I see the triumph of this 
cause of democracy weld together the nations of 
the world in a League to Enforce Peace. It 
was Sir Edward Grey who recently said: "Unless 
mankind learns from this war to avoid war, the 
struggle will have been in vain." The United 
States which has so long stood aloof from world 
entanglements is suddenly compelled to think in 
terms of world-civilization. It would indeed be 
dark if we had not the faith to believe that this 
very alliance, which is forced upon us, is the pre- 
liminary step to the League of Peace which will 
make impossible in the future such armament as 
has forced this war upon the world. If that can 
be our faith in this fight, it can certainly be a good 
fight of faith. 

But for this faith, my heart would sink as I 
send you out, each to do his bit in this world 
conflict. But, thank God, we have that faith, 
and I am looking forward to a great world peace, 
to a national tranquility, and to individual privi- 
lege and opportunity tomorrow, because we fight 
die good fight of faith today. 

I congratulate you that, by study and achieve- 
ment, you have made yourselves ready for so 
great usefulness, at a time when your country and 
the world so greatly need the best trained and 
noblest men and women of all the ages. I am 



158 ., COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP 

glad for the Christian faith which you have and 
which prompts you to do your best. The pray- 
ers and love of your alma mater will follow you 
always; and, whether for the members here to- 
night or those away on patriotic service for the 
country and the world, our confident hope and 
expectation is that, as individual Christian men 
and women in the church and Kingdom of God, 
and as citizens of your country, you may fight the 
good fight of faith and enjoy every victory and 
blessing which heaven's richest love and approval 
can lavish upon you, in this life and in the Life 
to Come. 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Sept. 2005 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



